Josh Berry and Austin Cindric secured the last two spots for the NASCAR preseason exhibition race, after achieving first and second place respectively in the last chance qualifier at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem.The competition, originally scheduled for Sunday, was postponed twice due to a snowstorm that covered North Carolina, moving the non-points event to Wednesday.Berry dominated the qualifying race in the No. 21 car for Wood Brothers Racing, a team affiliated with Team Penske. Cindric faced a more arduous task, competing neck and neck with Corey Lajoie for over 15 laps for the second transfer position.Lajoie replaced Brad Keselowski, co-owner of RFK Racing, due to injury, who is recovering from a leg fracture suffered in December. Lajoie held firm against Cindric, in a Penske entry, as both battled for second place.Upon reaching the checkered flag, AJ Allmendinger shoved Cindric in hopes of moving both Cindric and Lajoie aside, allowing Allmendinger to take the final spot. However, the maneuver propelled Cindric ahead of Lajoie to secure the final spot in the 200-lap Clash.Bowman Gray hosts the Clash for the second consecutive year. Previously, it was held at the Daytona International Speedway for 43 years, from 1979 to 2021, and then moved for three seasons to a temporary track inside the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.Among those who failed to qualify for the Clash are Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Todd Gilliland, who collaborated this week by removing snow from the stands at Bowman Gray to help NASCAR prepare the facilities.Kyle Larson, the current Cup Series champion, will start from the pole position in the Clash, alongside his Hendrick Motorsports teammate, William Byron, the defending two-time Daytona 500 champion.Denny Hamlin, who had an emotionally difficult offseason, will start sixth in his first race since dramatically losing the Cup title in November.Hamlin revealed before the race that he re-injured a tear in his labrum that was surgically repaired before the 2025 season when he slipped on debris from the December house fire that killed his father and seriously injured his mother.He said he would wait to fix it until the end of this next season.
“I don’t think it ever healed properly,” Hamlin said. “I took a little spill at my mother’s house, going through all the debris and stuff, and I just didn’t feel right. I rescanned it and re-tore it.”
Denny Hamlin
