KANSAS CITY, Kan. — For the third time this season and the 28th of his career, Kevin Harvick earned the pole position at Kansas Speedway on Friday evening.
It was Harvick’s fifth pole at the 1.5-mile speedway located in Kansas City, Kansas. Harvick laid down a lap time of 30.131 seconds and a speed of 179.217 mph.
The No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing driver has been quite successful at Kansas Speedway amassing three wins in 26 starts, eight top fives, 14 top-10 finishes, and 751 laps led.
His teammates weren’t that far away, as they took the first four spots. Aric Almirola placed second, hometown favorite Clint Bowyer third and Daniel Suarez fourth.
Talladega winner Chase Elliott was fifth, Dover winner Martin Truex Jr. was sixth, rookie William Byron was seventh, Kyle Larson eighth, Brad Keselowski ninth and Alex Bowman rounded out the top-10 starters for Saturday’s Digital Ally 400.
Other notables include Erik Jones who qualified 11th, Bubba Wallace in 12th, Kyle Busch in 13th, Kurt Busch in 14th, Denny Hamlin will start 17th, Jimmie Johnson in 18th and Ryan Blaney in 19th. Joey Logano will start 20th, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. 21st, Austin Dillon 22nd, Ryan Newman in 28th and Tyler Reddick in 30th. Reddick, the reigning Xfinity Series champion, will be making his second Cup Series start driving the Richard Childress Racing No. 31 Chevrolet.
With some unknowns going into Saturday’s race, Harvick explains if we’ll see the single-file racing that Kansas is known for or if we will see something like we did at Texas several weeks ago.
“I think it’s going to be very similar to Texas,” Harvick said. “You’ll see some wild restarts and I think you’re gonna see guys check up with a swarm of cars that they catch you. You know, I think for us the closing rate has been very good when you catch a draft off a car. I don’t think it’s going to be one big pack. You’re going to see that for seven to eight or nine, or 10 laps on the restart like you did at Texas because you do have multiple lanes here but as you run through the night, I think you’re going to see some tire strategy. I don’t think tire fall off is going to be near as bad as it has been in the past. There is still going to be some there, but we haven’t seen a lot today and it’s going to be cooler tomorrow night. I think the exact style of race is going to be hard to tell you, as the conditions are going to be when it is dark.”
Harvick will be looking for his fourth win at Kansas in Saturday’s race.
