How the Cook Out Southern 500 race order will be set Sunday at Darlington

The NASCAR Cup Series’ Cook Out Southern 500 is set to start Sunday at 6:00 p.m. ET at Darlington Raceway. It will be aired on NBCSN. Williams Byron surprised everyone by winning last week’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona. It’s unclear whether we’ll get another shocking result this time around, but we’ll go over the betting favorites and starting grid below.

Since the restart, the starting grid had been determined by random draws that took team owner points into account. However, NASCAR has since changed qualifying for the three national series (Cup, Xfinity, Gander Outdoors Truck) the rest of the year.

Three performance metrics will be utilized, with each one weighted a little different. It breaks down as follows.

• 15% of a fastest lap time position
• 25% of the driver’s final race finish position
• 25% of the owner’s final race position
• 35% of the Owner Points position.

For this week’s race, Chase Elliott claimed the pole position and is joined on the front row by Denny Hamlin. William Byron and Alex Bowman are next, followed by Brad Keselowski and Martin Truex, Jr.

Kevin Harvick (+325) is the favorite at DraftKings Sportsbook despite finishing in 20th in his last race despite being the pole sitter. He has four top five finishes in his last five starts at Darlington, so it makes since that he’s expected to bounce back. He’s trailed by Denny Hamlin (+350), who’s won two of his last five races at Darlington. Martin Truex Jr. (+800) rounds out the top three. He hasn’t finished outside the top four in his last eight races and has one career win at Darlington.

Here’s a look at the full starting lineup for the Cook Out Southern 500.