Harvick Gets Pole After Daytona Sprint Cup Qualifying Cancelled

Intermittent sprinkles canceled Friday's Sprint Cup qualifying for Saturday night's Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway.

The cancellation means that points leader Kevin Harvick will start on the pole with Jimmie Johnson on the outside row.

"We didn't have a lot of speed in our car for qualifying trim," Harvick said, "so that makes things a little easier at the beginning of the race for us to get going."

Twelve of the 45 entries managed to make their qualifying attempts before NASCAR announced the cancellation at 5:30 p.m. ET.

Sam Hornish Jr. (188,194 mph) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (188.088) were the fastest among the dozen who attempted qualifying.

"We would have liked to have qualified, just to see what kind of speed our car would have put up," said Kyle Busch, who will start third. "It's good to start up front, being third in points."

Michael McDowell and Todd Bodine were the two drivers shut out of the 43-car field by the cancellation of qualifying.

Friday marked only the third cancellation in 127 Cup qualifiers at Daytona but all three have come in the last four July races (2007, 2009, 2010).

Daytona track officials and NASCAR are paying close attention to track condition after February's Daytona 500 experienced lengthy delays when chunks of the track broke up.

An inspection after Thursday's practice revealed an area approximately one-foot tall by 4½ feet long in Turn 2 that was repaired as a precaution. The entire track is to be repaved following this weekend's racing.

"They've patched it and we hope that it's fixed," said Jamie McMurray, who won this year's Daytona 500. "They're doing what they can. If they could have re-paved it between now and the 500 they would have."