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2012 Daytona 500 Qualifying: Start Time, TV Schedule And More

Qualifying for the 54th Daytona 500 begins on Sunday afternoon, and it will determine the position for the Feb. 26 race. The procedure for qualifying is that drivers get two laps each. Drivers have already practiced this week, and there is already a good idea of who will be in the pole position since practice times have been an accurate predictor.

SB Nation's Jordan Bianchi breaks it down historically and has a good idea of who will win pole position:

So looking at the last five years, the person who won the pole position for the 500 was no worse than fourth in the opening round of practice. Using this as our barometer, as well as the speeds from practice earlier today, that means the Daytona 500 pole-sitter is likely to be one of the drivers who posted one of the top four speeds in first practice: Greg Biffle, Marcos Ambrose, Jeff Gordon or Trevor Bayne.


Related: SB Nation's Daytona 500 coverage
Related: Who will win the pole?

Date/time: Sunday Feb. 18, 1:05 p.m. ET

Location: Daytona International Speedway, Daytona Beach, Fla.

TV: FOX

Weather: 40 percent change of rain during qualifying hours.

For more on the Daytona 500 go visit SB Nation's NASCAR hub.

Photographs by coka_koehler used in background montage under Creative Commons. Thank you.