Starting Lineup | Qualifying Results
Martin Truex Jr. grabbed the top spot for Sunday’s TicketGuardian 500 at ISM Raceway.
The defending Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion earned his first pole of the season and 16th career top spot. It was the Furniture Row Racing driver’s second pole at the track formerly known at Phoenix Raceway. He turned a lap of 136.945 mph around the one-mile track to win the pole.
See Also: ISM Pole Winners
“I did get a little loose there for a second and thought I screwed it up. Hats off to the guys,” Truex Jr. said of his qualifying effort.
“We had a good game plan. We’ve qualified well here in the past but we’ve been searching for those last couple of spots. We were fifth here in the fall. Good execution and a fun day today.”
Kyle Larson will start outside the front row.
“I’m actually a little disappointed with second because I always qualify good here,” Larson said. “Thought I’d finally get that pole.”
Chase Elliott, Alex Bowman and Joey Logano rounded out the top five.
Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Jamie McMurray, Erik Jones and Kevin Harvick completed the first 10 qualifiers.
Other notables in Sunday’s field include Ryan Blaney (12th), defending race winner Ryan Newman (13th), Jimmie Johnson (17th), Brad Keselowski (25th) and Bubba Wallace (27th).
“I got to look back to the amount of practice we had today, we only had 20 minutes of practice because of the issues we had in Las Vegas,” said Johnson, who led the opening qualifying segment. “I never had a chance to go out on scuff tires to see what adjustments we needed to make. I had two runs on stickers in practice and we clearly dialed that part of the car in. It would have been nice to have a scuff run to go out and understand just what to do.”
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. qualified 29th but because he crashed his primary car in practice and went to a back-up the Roush Fenway Racing driver will start last in Sunday’s race.
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series teams will have two practice sessions on Saturday to dial their cars in for Sunday’s fourth race of the 2018 season.
