TULSA, Okla. – He started the week by winning Monday’s Cummins Qualifying Night feature at Tulsa Expo Raceway, but Friday night Cannon McIntosh pulled the No. 1 seed for the #DoItForGrady Chili Bowl Nationals Pole Shuffle presented by Pizza Express.
McIntosh, whose victory guaranteed him one of the top-five seeds in the special event that will set the first five rows of the starting grid of Saturday night’s 55-lap finale, was the first driver to pull a pill Friday.
That pill was the best one in the house and ensures that McIntosh will start no worse than fourth in the headlining Chili Bowl A-main, which will be broadcast to a worldwide audience on MAVTV.
“I’m really confident about our chances going into the weekend,” McIntosh said Friday night. “We had a great car Monday night and this whole KKM team has put in a ton of work to get us as good as I think we’ve ever been here. Now we know we’ll start somewhere in the first two rows and we’ll go out Saturday evening and do our best to put it on the pole for the big show.”
The format for the pole shuffle features races of four cars apiece, which will determine who lines up where for the Chili Bowl finale, for the second straight year.
Seeds seven through 10 will race in the first four-car dash, with the top two finishers advancing to meet seeds five and six. The top two finishers from that next race will advance and face off against seeds three and four.
Then, the top two from that sprint will battle against the top-two seeds overall, with the final four-car sprint lining up the first four positions on the grid for Saturday night’s 55-lap championship A-main.
Behind McIntosh, Friday winner Justin Grant and Tuesday winner Kyle Larson are seeded second and third, respectively. Thursday winner Christopher Bell is the fourth seed and Rico Abreu, who won Wednesday night’s preliminary feature, slots in as the fifth-seeded driver.
Tyler Courtney, Alex Bright, Kyle Cummins, Thomas Meseraull and Buddy Kofoid are the sixth through 10th seeds for Saturday night’s Pole Shuffle.
The #DoItForGrady Pole Shuffle presented by Pizza Express is scheduled for 6 p.m. CT Saturday.
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