Kyle Busch will Sunday’s Bluegreen Vacations 500, the penultimate race of the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season, at ISM Raceway from the pole after posting a 25.593-second/140.116 mph lap in Saturday’s qualifying session. It was Busch’s first pole of the season, and he became only the second Toyota driver, joining Denny Hamlin, to win a pole this year, despite Sunday’s race being the 35th of the season.
“It’s, obviously, a really good starting spot for us, and track position is a big deal here,” Busch said. "Obviously, it gives us number one pit selection as well, so lots of things that can certainly help us to fire off here to start. Those guys behind us, we know are going to be awfully hungry as well. We just have to see how the race plays out. It puts us in the best possible spot to start off, and we’ve got 312 laps to figure it out.”
Reigning series champion Joey Logano was the last of 39 drivers to get onto the track Saturday to make a qualifying attempt, and when he finally made his qualifying laps, he claimed the second starting spot to start alongside Busch on the front row.
“I’m still shaking a little bit,” Logano said. ”It seems to happen during qualifying when you’re trying to get everything you can get. It’s close, and we’re doing what we’ve got to do. We’ve got to run up front. We got to start up front and stay up there all day. I’m proud of the effort. It’s not first, but we’re not bad.”
When Logano finally made his qualifying attempt, he crashed a Joe Gibbs Racing party, of sorts. Prior to Logano’s run, JGR drivers were in the provisional top-three positions, with Busch followed by teammates Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. At the end of the session, Hamlin was third and Truex fourth to start Sunday’s race side-by-side in row two.
“It will be a good starting spot, for sure,” Truex said. "I felt okay about our car yesterday (in practice). Thought we made some gains on it and made some more changes on it last night. We’ll see what we can come up with. Looking forward to it.”
Playoff drivers claimed the top-seven spots on the starting grid, with Kyle Larson in fifth, Chase Elliott sixth and Kevin Harvick in seventh.
“We were sixth best, I guess,” Elliott said. “We’ll go to work tomorrow and try to move forward.”
All eight playoff drivers qualified in the top-10, as Ryan Blaney qualified 10th.
The only two non-playoff drivers inside the top-10 at the end of qualifying were Kurt Busch and Erik Jones in eighth and ninth, respectively.
“I felt like the car had a good bit of grip out there in the qualifying trim for our first time,” Busch said. “We didn’t do a qualifying trim run yesterday, and I didn’t want to overstep the slip limits, push too hard, and have a chance of losing it. To be top-10, and with the lap times being in the 90s, that was decent, but we needed to be in the low 80s if we were going to have a shot at it. Then, my little brother [Kyle Busch’ just shattered it; he was in the 60s. Congrats to the little brother on the pole; he’s got a run for the championship. Kyle Larson out-qualified us, which was good, and he’s got a run, as well, for the championship. He needs a good run tomorrow.”
Jones’ top-10 qualifying effort put all four JGR cars inside the top-10 for the start of Sunday’s race.
Before the JGR drivers made their qualifying attempts, the top of the scoring pylon was dominated by Stewart-Haas Racing. Clint Bowyer went out 16th in the qualifying order and claimed the provisional pole and was joined on the provisional front row by teammate Daniel Suarez a few minutes later.
At one point after Truex went out 21st and took the provisional pole, he was followed by the SHR quartet of drivers — Bowyer, Harvick, Suarez and Aric Almirola. By the end of the qualifying session, Almirola was 11th, Bowyer 13th and Suarez 15th.
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