JOLIET, ILL. - To say that Sprint Cup qualifying was rained out Thursday night at Chicagoland Speedway is to say that a 500-pound sack of flour could make a really big biscuit.

As jet dryers were closing in on getting the track ready after a late-afternoon shower interrupted the Cup practice and wiped out the final Nationwide session, a cloud that defines the word "ominous" rolled in from behind Turns 3 and 4.

The temperature dropped, the wind picked up and people started scurrying.

The sky was so black it would have shocked no one to see Helen Hunt running by, heading for the nearest cornfield. (If you haven't seen the movie "Twister," ignore that last reference.)

The rain started, with vigor, and NASCAR quickly accepted the obvious. The field for Saturday night's LifeLock.com 400 was set according to the rulebook, putting points leader Kyle Busch and second-place Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the front row.

"That was pretty ugly," Jeff Burton said of the approaching storm.

It wasn't as bad as it looked -- there's really not much of a way it could have been -- and the weather forecast for today is better.

That means Cup teams should get in two late-afternoon practices at the 1.5-mile oval, but the question lingers as to what teams will face the first time they race here under the lights and with NASCAR's new car.

"This is a big unknown," Burton said. "That's one reason I am running in the Nationwide Series race here, because I want to understand the difference between the track in the day and at night. ... Until we transition from when the race starts until it ends, we don't know. I think everybody will just take their best guess at it."

Earnhardt Jr. said he and crew chief Tony Eury Jr. will work on getting the front end of the No. 88 Chevrolet turning well, perhaps setting up toward the loose side at first figuring dropping temperatures will add grip.

"When we first went out there for practice today, we had too much of this and not enough of that," Earnhardt Jr. said. "We worked hard on it. But we seem to have a really good baseline at the 1.5-mile tracks that we've been able to take with us everywhere."

Puzzling or not, the prospect of a night race here sits well with Earnhardt Jr.

"It will be fun to race here under the lights," he said. "I think the atmosphere with lights is a little more energetic for the drivers, the crew and the fans."

From a practical standpoint, the early-evening frog strangler allowed Terry Labonte -- driving the No. 45 Dodge for Petty Enterprises -- and Bill Elliott -- in the Wood Brothers' No. 21 Ford -- to make the race as former champions. Labonte starts 36th, and Elliott lines up 37th.

Scott Riggs, AJ Allmendinger, J.J. Yeley, Joe Nemechek, Patrick Carpentier and Jason Leffler got the remaining spots based on their position in the car owner standings. Tony Raines and Johnny Sauter were in the two cars that did not get into the race.