BRISTOL, Tenn. — Alex Bowman claimed his second pole of the NASCAR Cup Series season during qualifying for Sunday’s Food City 500 Saturday at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Bowman, who has two poles and four top-10 starts this season, earned the seventh pole of his career with a lap of 14.912 seconds (128.675 mph) in the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.
It was also his second pole at the .533-mile concrete race track.
“Honestly, it really wasn’t the best lap for me. I kind of over-slowed entry to (turn) three, I thought,” Bowman explained. “So, yeah, just probably going out early. Typically, this place trends that the later cars are faster. But, you know, obviously today’s scenario with tires are vastly different than what the racetrack is doing. So, yeah, hard to say.
“Certainly was watching the clouds there at the end… there were some big clouds coming. The 24 and the 11, guys that tagged the wall at the very end, I knew they were going to be good. So, yeah, happy that it held on.”
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. qualified second in the Hyak Motorsports Chevrolet for his first top-10 start of the season.
Bowman’s teammate, Kyle Larson, qualified third and completed a sweep of the top three for Chevrolet.
A winner of two consecutive races, Denny Hamlin qualified fourth for Joe Gibbs Racing, while Ryan Blaney starts fifth in his Team Penske Ford.
Jesse Love qualified 19th in his first Cup Series qualifying effort for Richard Childress Racing, while Cup Series champions Kyle Busch and Joey Logano each crashed on their qualifying runs.
“I was just having to push it hard trying to make a fast lap,” Logano said. “It turned pretty good and I got a little bit down on that apron there and it kind of shoved me up. I kind of got free and then I got into the looser stuff and hit the wall. The last few times we’ve qualified here in the Next Gen car it’s been kind of sketchy to say the least.”
