Tyler Reddick was the class of the field in NASCAR Cup Series qualifying as he won the pole for Sunday’s Goodyear 400 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway.
Wheeling his No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota, Reddick narrowly edged Brad Keselowski by 0.018 seconds to earn his pole position of the season.
In a way, the pole was a bit of redemption for Reddick after an off-day last week at Kansas saw the No. 45 team finish 20th.
“We never really gave ourselves a chance,” Reddick said. “I made some pretty big mistakes early in the race and tore the car up pretty bad. We were still able to get back up to fifth with a pretty damaged race car, but yeah, finishing 20th and running where we did in stage three was not what we wanted. It is okay – it happens, so we just were extra motivated back at the shop this week, and it got us motivated and got our mindset right.
“We brought a really fast Toyota Camry. We did a good job in practice understanding what our car needed for qualifying and we just maximized qualifying well.”
Last week’s runner-up finisher at Kansas Speedway, Chris Buescher qualified third. Ty Gibbs and William Byron made up the top five spots.
Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson qualified sixth, followed by a pair of Toyotas in Denny Hamlin (seventh) and Bubba Wallace (eighth). Friday’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series winner Ross Chastain starts ninth.
Rounding out the top 10 was Joe Gibbs Racing’s Martin Truex Jr.
Reddick enters Sunday’s race at The Track Too Tough To Tame with three top-three finishes in the last four races held at Darlington.