LOUDON, N.H. – Afternoon rain wreaked havoc on the New Hampshire Motor Speedway schedule Friday, handing Sprint Cup points leader Kyle Busch the pole for the Sylvania 300 and forcing NASCAR to pull off a tripleheader of racing at the track on Saturday.

The Camping World East Series will hold its postponed Heluva Good! 125 at 10 a.m. With all 33 trucks going to make the starting field, the Craftsman Truck Series scrapped its qualifying session slated for Saturday morning.

The Whelen Modified Tour and Truck Series races will go off as scheduled, at 1 and 3 p.m., respectively.

For the 12 drivers in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, the rain was a welcome gift in some cases. As happened in 2004 here, the first year of the Chase format, all the Chase drivers will see where they stack up right at the drop of the green flag.

"We get to kind of be up there and be right in the mix," said Carl Edwards, who will start second – after being just 33^rd fastest out of 45 cars in Friday’s practice. "You know everybody up there is racing for the same thing, so it should be pretty tame – hopefully – the first few laps."

Starting up front is always a priority for Cup teams, but Busch said it takes on added significance in the Chase.

"You just have to hope and pray that everything kind of stays your way, and obviously it’s the best medicine to start up front and start from the pole," Busch said.

"Last time we were here (in June) we started so far back and we had a hard time passing and moving up front... We were stuck from 14^th to 16^th to 18^th all day long and couldn’t go anywhere."

DOUBLE DUTY

The rain put a wrench in the weekend plans of Joey Polewarczyk Jr., but it didn’t thwart them entirely. Polewarczyk still intends to run the East Series race at New Hampshire in the morning and then head to Oxford Plains Speedway for the 150-lap ACT race there – where qualifying gets underway at 2 p.m.

But, unfortunately for Polewarczyk, who won an ACT race at Oxford in June and finished third in the TD Banknorth 250 there in July, he won’t get any practice time.

"We’ll do what we have to do," said Polewarczyk, who starts 10^th in the East Series race and sits seventh in the ACT standings with two wins. "We’ll have someone bring the car (to Oxford) for us. It would be nice to have some practice, but that’s just not going to happen."

Polewarczyk said that the setup under the car will the be the same as it has been at Oxford already.

"It’s the same," he said. "We’ll just have to make due with what we have."

Eddie MacDonald, presumably, will not be so fortunate. He had planned to run at Oxford, too – but his Late Model hasn’t run since the TD Banknorth 250.

The car has been so neglected the last two months that not only are all the tires on the car flat, but the tires on the hauler carrying the car are also flat.

HOT LAPS

Two-time East Series champion Mike Olsen will start 30^th in the Craftsman Truck Series race. He is expected to perform a "start and park" in the truck. ... Jimmie Johnson is wild about the No. 48. "I do some goofy things," said Johnson, the 2-time defending Cup champion. "My microwave, I’ll start it at 48 seconds and stop it at one. Instead of getting up at 7:30, I set my alarm for 7:48 – stupid things like that."

Posted at 6:15 p.m. by TBarrett