Ryan Blaney drew the pole for Wednesday night’s Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 500, the first NASCAR Cup Series race at the track scheduled as a night race. The drawing in which Blaney scored the pole was among the teams within the top-12 of Cup series car owner points.
Aric Almirola drew the second starting position to start on the front row for the third-consecutive race after also starting in the second position at Atlanta Motor Speedway and Bristol Motor Speedway.
“I’ve had Martinsville on the calendar since the beginning of the year as one of the races I look forward to the most with Buga [crew chief Mike Bugarewicz],” Almirola said. “I’m excited to see what we can do and I’m glad we were able to stay inside the top-12 in points to get us a decent starting position.”
Ford drivers claimed all four of the staring positions in the top-two rows of the starting grid and all but one position in the first three rows. Joey Logano and Clint Bowyer drew the third and fourth starting spot to start in row two, and Brad Keselowski drew the sixth starting spot.
The only non-Ford driver in the first three rows for Wednesday night’s green flag will be Toyota driver Martin Truex Jr. in the third row in the fifth starting position.
“I feel real close [To winning],” Truex said. “I feel we were in position to win three or four already. It’s just one of those things where we haven’t had everything come together. This past weekend at Atlanta, I felt like we had a dominant car through the first two stages and just lost the handling a little bit there in stage three. Track cooled off a little bit. The car changed a little bit, and you find yourself not able to track down the leader again. We’ve been right there. I feel like we had a shot at winning Darlington and the Coke 600. Those are the past couple races. I feel like we are right there, and we are working to get better each week. I think as far as the things with James [Small, crew chief], it’s a learning process. That’s been pretty seamless, really. We know each other and we’ve worked together long enough to know that, and I don’t think that’s anything that is holding us up. It’s just a matter of putting all the little details together and executing.”
Alex Bowman drew the highest starting position among Chevrolet drivers — eighth. He’ll share the fourth row on the grid with Toyota driver Kyle Busch, who drew the seventh starting position.
Kurt Busch and Kevin Harvick drew fifth-row spots on the grid, while Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin drew the sixth-row spots of 11th and 12th.
In addition to the draw among the top-12 drivers in car owner points were drawings for the teams in the 13th-24th positions for corresponding spots on the grid and another for the 25th-36th positions on the grid for teams in those points positions. Unchartered teams will start in the final positions, 37th through 39th, on the grid in their order of owner points.
