Chase Elliott has some big shoes to fill as he is taking over the Hendrick Motorsports' 24 car this season after the retirement of Jeff Gordon. But if his performance on Sunday during pole qualifying for the Daytona 500 is any indicator, he will have no problems. 

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was fastest in the first round, which consisted of one lap single car runs. Matt Kenseth was second, with Elliott third. Defending series champion Kyle Busch was fourth, while Ricky Stenhouse Jr. surprisingly sat in fifth place going into the second round. 

The second round featured the 12 fastest drivers from the first round doing one lap single car runs, with the two fastest being guaranteed to be on the front row for next Sunday's Daytona 500. The rest of the results determine the starting order for the Can-Am duels, which will take place on Thursday and will determine the rest of the field for the 500.

In the second round, most drivers ran a better time than they did in the first round, with only Joey Logano running a time that was worse. The cars went out for the second round in the inverse order of speeds from the first round, meaning that Elliott was one of the last drivers to go. 

He went out and ran a time of 45.845, which was the fastest time anybody had ran all day. Kenseth was up next, but was unable to top Ellliott, as he ran a 45.91, which put him in second position. That set up the final driver of the day, as Earnhardt Jr. made his final run hoping for another Daytona 500 pole. Despite his hopes, he was unable to get onto the front row, as his 45.99 was only good enough for third.

Two cars who did clinch a spot in the race were Ryan Blaney and Matt Dibendetto, both of whom do not have one of the charters that allow entry into every race. There are still two spots in the race that will be handed out after the duels on Thursday. 

The next event is the Can-Am Duels, which will take place on Thursday afternoon.

VAVEL USA will have coverage of the duels, including live tweets on the @NASCARonVAVEL Twitter account.

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About the author
Stevie Larson
NASCAR Editor, Minnesota sports fan. Contact: [email protected]