Daytona 500 Qualifying 2017: Duels Starting Grid After Group Results

Chase Elliott and Dale Earnhardt Jr. won't have to worry about how they finish in Thursday's Can-Am Duels ahead of the Daytona 500 on Feb. 26. Their front-row positions in the Great American Race are locked in after taking the top two spots in qualifying on Sunday.

Elliott captured the Daytona 500 pole for a second year in a row, the first driver to capture back-to-back poles for this race since Ken Schrader pulled off the feat three consecutive times from 1988 to 1990, per SB Nation's Jordan Bianchi.

With Elliott and Earnhardt set for the front row, the rest of the starting lineup for the Daytona 500 will come down to the Can-Am Duels.

NASCAR.com has a quick explainer on how the duels are set up for this year:

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The Can-Am Duels will determine spots 3-38 in the Daytona 500 grid. With 36 Charter teams entered in the race, two of these spots will be filled by the top Open car in each Duel race. The qualifiers from the first Duel will line up on the inside row in the Daytona 500 depending upon their finish in Duel 1. The qualifiers from the second Duel will line up on the outside row for the Daytona 500 depending upon their result in Duel 2. 

The remaining two spots on the Daytona 500 grid will be awarded to the top Open teams from Sunday's qualifying that are still left (i.e. didn't qualify through the Duels).

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Here are the lineups for Thursday's twin duels.

Elliott and Earnhardt are still in the duels lineups despite their top qualifying finishes, and they will surely enjoy some extra time on the track in anticipation of Sunday's big race. Elliott qualified with the fastest time of 46.663 seconds, a mere .002 seconds better than Earnhardt's best lap. 

Duel 1 Lineup			Duel 2 Lineup
Starting Position	Driver		Starting Position	Driver
1	Chase Elliott		1	Dale Earnhardt Jr.
2	Brad Keselowski		2	Clint Bowyer
3	Martin Truex Jr.		3	Denny Hamlin
4	Kevin Harvick		4	Kasey Kahne
5	Matt Kenseth		5	Ryan Newman
6	Kyle Busch		6	Ty Dillon
7	Ricky Stenhouse Jr		7	Jimmie Johnson
8	Daniel Suarez		8	Kyle Larson
9	Joey Logano		9	Ryan Blaney
10	Trevor Bayne		10	Erik Jones
11	Paul Menard		11	Kurt Busch
12	Jamie McMurray		12	Danica Patrick
13	Aric Almirola		13	Austin Dillon
14	Landon Cassill		14	AJ Allmendinger
15	Matt DiBenedetto		15	Michael McDowell
16	Chris Buescher		16	David Ragan
17	Brendan Gaughan		17	Michael Waltrip
18	Cole Whitt		18	Elliott Sadler
19	Reed Sorenson		19	D.J. Kennington
20	Joey Gase		20	Jeffrey Earnhardt
21	Corey LaJoie		21	Timmy Hill

Though Elliott started first and Earnhardt third in the 2016 Daytona, it had no bearing on their results as both drivers crashed out of the race (Denny Hamlin, who finished sixth in qualifying Sunday, won last year's Daytona 500). 

Elliott, just 21 years old and the son of two-time Daytona 500 winner Bill Elliott, knows he needs to focus for both the duels and Sunday's big race. 

"I hope we can just try to get to the end of the 500, next," Elliott said, per Dan Gelston of the Associated Press (via the Charlotte Observer). "We've obviously got to get through the Duels, first. But, just making it to the end and having yourself in position, obviously we'd love to have a shot to win this thing. It would be great and I think we have a car that can do it."

Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated Press

The strong qualifying result was a welcome sign for the 42-year-old Earnhardt, who missed much of last year dealing with concussion symptoms.

He wrecked in the Daytona 500 last year, and he's cautious about suffering a similar fate this year after seeing Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson crash twice in an exhibition race on Sunday, per ESPN.com's Bob Pockrass.

"We're definitely aware of it and we're looking at our notes from over the years," Earnhardt said, per Pockrass. "I thought we ran great in 2015, so we'll look at what we did then and what we're doing and sort of go through the process of elimination and that's kind of what we've been doing until we fix it."

Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images

Earnhardt finished third in 2015, and Johnson fifth. Though crashing out has been far too common for the Hendrick Motorsports team, there's certainly plenty of confidence to come from the strong qualifying results. 

The duels will be incredibly important for all the drivers gearing up for Sunday, as it determines starting position for most involved. For the likes of Elliott and Earnhardt, it can be used as useful information gathering as they look to improve upon the disastrous results from a year prior.