Tyler Reddick awarded Cup pole at Atlanta

Tyler Reddick has been awarded the pole position for this weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series Autotrader 400 at Atlanta’s EchoPark Speedway on Saturday, February 21.

The event’s starting lineup was initially going to be determined through two single-car qualifying rounds. In the first round, each of the 38 competitors entered to bid for 38 starting spots would cycle around Atlanta through a single-timed lap.  At the conclusion of the first qualifying round, the top-10 fastest competitors would transfer to the second (final) round and run a single qualifying lap to bid for the pole position.

However, Saturday’s qualifying session was canceled due to rain and a lightning hold. As a result, the lineup was determined using a qualifying metric formula from the NASCAR rulebook. The formula involved evaluating competitors’ results from the most recent event and owner standings. This resulted in Reddick being awarded the first-place starting spot as he is coming off last weekend’s victory in the 68th running of the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway and is leading the Cup standings.

With the awarded pole, Reddick will attempt to become the sixth competitor in the history of the Cup Series division to win the first of two-scheduled events to commence a new season of racing. The latest occurrence of this feat dates back to 2009, made by the 2003 Cup Series champion, Matt Kenseth.

Reddick will share the front row with Joey Logano, the latter of whom is a two-time Cup winner at Atlanta. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Chase Elliott and Brad Keselowski will start in the top five, respectively. Zane Smith, Chris Buescher, Riley Herbst, Bubba Wallace and Josh Berry complete the top-10 starting spots, respectively.

Starting lineup:

1. Tyler Reddick

2. Joey Logano

3. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. 

4. Chase Elliott

5. Brad Keselowski

6. Zane Smith

7. Chris Buescher

8. Riley Herbst

9. Bubba Wallace

10. Josh Berry

11. Noah Gragson

12. Daniel Suarez

13. William Byron

14. Kyle Busch

15. Carson Hocevar

16. Kyle Larson

17. Ty Dillon

18. Cody Ware

19. AJ Allmendinger

20. Michael McDowell

21. Ross Chastain

22. Ryan Blaney

23. Erik Jones

24. John Hunter Nemechek

25. Ty Gibbs

26. Ryan Preece

27. Cole Custer

28. Shane van Gisbergen

29. Denny Hamlin

30. Austin Cindric

31. Connor Zilisch

32. Christopher Bell

33. Austin Dillon

34. Chase Briscoe

35. Todd Gilliland

36. Alex Bowman

37. BJ McLeod

38. JJ Yeley

The 2026 Autotrader 400 at EchoPark Speedway is scheduled to occur on Sunday, February 22, at 3 p.m. ET on FOX, PRN Radio, SiriusXM and HBO MAX