Race Weekend Central

David Ragan Wins Pole for XFINITY Daytona Race

David Ragan will be on pole for Friday night’s XFINITY series race at Daytona after turning a lap at 180.346 mph.

Ragan is in the No. 18 Toyota this week for Joe Gibbs Racing in place of Matt Tifft. Tifft underwent surgery on Friday to remove a tumor found on the young driver’s brain a couple of weeks ago during a back procedure.

Ragan has three restrictor plate wins among the Sprint Cup and XFINITY series, with his last occurring in 2013 for Front Row Motorsports at Talladega. This will be his first XFINITY series start of the season.

Austin Dillon, another Cup driver, will be starting next to Ragan in second. Erik Jones will be starting third and Joey Logano will be starting fourth. Points leader Daniel Suarez rounds out the top 5.

Other notables in the field include Darrell Wallace, Jr. in sixth, Elliott Sadler in ninth and Chase Elliott in 15th. Elliott won the first Daytona race this season and, like Daytona, will be running the No. 88 Chevrolet for JR Motorsports.

The first round of qualifying was delayed mid round by an hour due to rain/lightning. NASCAR decided not to cancel qualifying but instead delay the later Cup qualifying session. Three drivers – Carl Long, Derrike Cope and Mike Harmon – did not make the field.

NASCAR has ruled that there will be a lap-15 competition caution due to little practice time as the series has been fighting rain the last two days at the Florida racetrack.

Full results can be found here.

About the author

Michael has watched NASCAR for 20 years and regularly covered the sport from 2013-2021. He moved on to Formula 1, IndyCar, and SRX coverage for the site, while still putting a toe in the water from time-to-time back into the NASCAR pool.

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