Riley Herbst powered his No. 98 Ford Mustang to pole position for Saturday’s Tennessee Lottery 250 at Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway.
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Kaulig Racing’s A.J. Allmendinger attempted to dethrone Herbst as the last driver to set a time, but the No. 16 driver would come up .091 seconds short.
“I was worried about three cars,” Herbst said. “The 9 (Gragson), 54 (Gibbs), and obviously A.J., he was really fast in practice. Once we had the first two covered, I took a little bit of a breath and I was like, ‘alright, we might have a shot at this.’ A.J. had a really good lap going on SMT (SportsMEDIA Technology) and I was like, ‘oh it’s going to be close.’ I just have to thank everybody at Stewart-Haas Racing, it’s been a way better year than last year.”
With the heat continuing to ramp up throughout the day, the Stewart-Haas Racing driver believes that the slick conditions will open up the door for drivers to run different lines on the track when the green flag waves.
“I think it’s going to get hotter, we’re going to go green flag at 2:30-3 o’clock,” Herbst said. “If I was a betting man from Las Vegas, I’d put us that we’d be on the fence today.”
Joe Gibbs Racing’s Trevor Bayne will start third, with two Chevrolet’s of Austin Hill and Justin Allgaier rounding out the top-five.