2020 Daytona 500 Duels: How to watch Thursday's qualifying races, starting lineups

[King_of_lion]

The NASCAR Cup Series season kicked off last weekend with the wild Busch Clash at Daytona International Speedway, and the cars will hit the track again on Thursday for two high-intensity races to determine the starting order for the 2020 Daytona 500. Here’s everything you need to know about the Duels this week. When do the Duels start? Duel No. 1 will begin at 7:00 pm. ET on Thursday, February 13th, on Fox Sports 1. Duel No. 2 will follow, with an estimated starting time of around 8:45 p.m. ET. What are the Duels? For the Daytona 500, the standard qualifying session (which occurred last weekend) only locks in the front row for Sunday’s race. The results of qualifying are then used to determine the starting order for two qualifying races, known in 2020 as the Bluegreen Vacation Duels. Duel No. 1 will feature a field of 22 cars, and Duel No. 2 will have 21 cars. A total of three “open” (non-charter) cars will not make the final field of 40, so drivers Daniel Suarez, Reed Sorenson, Justin Haley, Chad Finchum, JJ Yeley, Brendan Gaughan and Timmy Hill will be fighting over four entries in the 500. The top open driver in each duel will earn a spot in the Daytona 500, and the remaining slot will go to the open drivers with the best qualifying time, per NASCAR.com. Each duel will be a 150-mile race, or 60 laps around the 2.5 Daytona International Speedway circuit. The finishing order of Duel No. 1 will make up the inside line (odd positions) in the Daytona 500 lineup, so the winner of Duel No. 1 will start third, while the finishing order of Duel No. 2 will make up the outside line. There will be no “stages” within either Duel, but each driver will have to make at least one pit stop, as the fuel window is under 60 laps. Each duel does award championship points to the top 10 finishers. The winner of each duel will receive 10 points, the second place drivers will earn 9 points, down to 1 point for a 10th-place finish. Which drivers are on the Daytona 500 front row? Ricky Stenhouse Jr. won the pole position with a qualifying time of 46.253 seconds. Alex Bowman will start second, after posting a time of 46.305 seconds. Both of these drivers will start on the pole in their respective duel, but as each driver is already locked into their position, it’s likely that they won’t be going all-out to win.