NASCAR New Hampshire 2017: Starting grid, lineup for IMS Connect 300

The second race of the 2017 NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series playoffs is set for Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Kyle Busch paced ISM Connect 300 qualifying, edging Kyle Larson for his series-best eighth pole position of the season and his second in as many postseason races.

The complete starting lineup is below.

NBCSN will broadcast the middle playoff race of Round 1, with its coverage beginning at 1:30 p.m. ET. The race goes green at 2:15 p.m. with Rick Allen handling play-by-play duties along with analysts Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte. Online streaming is available through NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app.

Busch started on the pole last week at Chicagoland Speedway, leading 85 of the first 87 laps before a couple of pit road miscues caused him to fall back and finish 15th. That opened the door for Martin Truex Jr., who scored his fifth win of the season and earned automatic advancement to the second round.

Larson and Denny Hamlin line up second and third, respectively, on Sunday. Hamlin won the July race at New Hampshire with Larson finishing runner-up.

Ryan Blaney and Truex complete the top-five qualifiers. Kevin Harvick starts sixth, followed by Kurt Busch, rookie Erik Jones, Kasey Kahne and Matt Kenseth.

Thirteen of the top 14 starters are among the 16 playoff-eligible drivers, with Jones in eighth the lone exception. A win Sunday by a playoff driver guarantees transferring to the next round where the field will be shrunk to following next week’s elimination race at Dover International Speedway.

NASCAR encounters more bumps on road back to relevancy

What NASCAR needed to start the playoffs was an exciting, drama-filled race that setup a compelling postseason. What it got was a race where the winner, Martin Truex Jr., won by a seven-second margin over a second-place finisher driving a car that would later fail technical inspection. Promising it was not.

NASCAR entered 2017 very much at the crossroads. To combat plummeting television ratings and a fan base skewing heavily older, the industry came together in an unprecedented showing of collaboration to conceptualize and implement stage racing.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. wants NASCAR to regulate victory burnouts that cause tires to blow out

Dale Earnhardt Jr. would like NASCAR to curb post-race celebrations that sees drivers perform burnouts so excessively that it causes their rear tires to explode.

It is a common site that when a driver wins a race they do a burnout down the front straightaway, but often the celebration causes damage to the rear of a car. Earnhardt says drivers understand this and are intentionally being excessive because any damage incurred makes it difficult to properly inspect the winning car for any illegalities.

Joey Logano criticizes NASCAR over penalty that made him park on pit road

“I had time for a lot of thoughts in there, mainly that it’s a joke,” Logano told reporters afterward, via NBC Sports. “I don’t know why it has to be out on pit road. I mean, a penalty is a penalty. That’s fine, but there’s no reason to sit out there. I think it’s dumb, but that’s coming from a guy that just sat in a car for an hour sweating. That may not be the best thing to say, but it’s true.”