Kyle Larson closed the second round, or round of 12, of the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs with a win at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval, his series-leading seventh win of the season. Fast-forward a week, and Larson kicks off the round of eight from the pole for the AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 500 at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday.
“We’ve been good on the intermediate tracks this year and we have two to start this round. We weren’t as good as I would have liked at Texas, but we were able to get the victory in the All-Star Race,” Larson said. “And we led a lot of laps at Kansas, so we are looking forward to getting back there. We ran top-five at Martinsville, and that is a track where I don’t have much success but feel positive about it because of how we ran there in the spring.”
Denny Hamlin, with two wins in the first six races of the playoffs, starts alongside Larson on the front row at TMS.
The eight playoff drivers start in the top-eight positions, or first four rows, of the Texas grid, including Kyle Busch and Ryan Blaney in row two. Busch is a four-time winner at Texas, including the most recent Cup Series race at the track late in the 2020 season.
Joey Logano starts fifth. Reigning Cup Series champion Chase Elliott is the other official third-row starter, but he’ll have to drop to the back for the initial green flag as a result of two pre-race inspection failures.
Brad Keselowski and Martin Truex Jr. bring up the rear among playoff drivers with the seventh and eighth starting positions at Texas. Tyler Reddick and Chris Buescher are the highest-starting non-playoff drivers in the fifth row of Sunday’s starting grid.
“I’ve come close to winning at Texas Motor Speedway a lot in my career, even finishing second behind my teammate Austin Dillon last July, so I’m excited at having another shot there,” Reddick said. “Our #8 team is bringing extremely fast Chevrolet Camaros to the track right now and I feel like our first win is right around the corner. Last weekend in Charlotte at the Roval showed what our team is capable of and we are looking forward to showing that again in Texas on Sunday. The Clark Pipeline Services Chevrolet is going to have speed and we’ll see if I can finally get one of those cowboy hats.”
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