William Byron claimed the pole for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway with a 170.904 mph lap during qualifying. It’s his 15th career pole and his second this season.
“I felt good about it today,” Byron said, “felt like we had a good plan going into practice and that we are always strong here.
“Tried to find a decent balance there, worked on it and got better and finished practice pretty strong, so I felt like I had some confidence going into practice, was just nervous going early.
“Having an earlier draw was not ideal, but it seemed like the track temp was going up so it wasn’t the worst thing. Proud of our team, we had a really good week of prep.”
Ryan Preece will start beside Byron on the front row at Darlington in the Goodyear 400 for his first top-10 start of the season.
Denny Hamlin was third-fastest while Chase Briscoe qualified fourth, followed by Bubba Wallace, to round out the top five.
Denny Hamlin, last week’s Cup Series winner at Martinsville, was third-fastest and spoke about his confidence heading into this weekend’s race at Darlington.
“I think last week was a great week for the team, no doubt about it,” Hamlin said. “To get a win early, just to start to get some playoff bonus points, that’s always a great thing. When we come here, absolutely, I know what I need out of the car.
“I’ll know within the first few laps of practice whether it’s got the ‘it’ that it needs to be good and if not, we’ll go to work on it. But the confidence I have is knowing exactly what I need at this track. I know how to enter the corner; I know how to exit it. I know how much gas and brake to apply to make good speed here. It’s just a matter of whether the car’s working directly on that day and if it isn’t, we can get it pretty close usually.”
Austin Cindric, Tyler Reddick, Kyle Busch, Ryan Blaney and Michael McDowell completed the top-10 drivers in the qualifying session.
