Ryan Blaney sets the pace to score the Busch Light Pole at Watkins Glen

Ryan Blaney topped NASCAR Cup Series qualifying Saturday afternoon at Watkins Glen International in his No. 12 Team Penske Ford. It’s his second Busch Light Pole Award this year and his 15th career pole.

The pole was Team Penske’s 150th Cup Series pole.

“What a cool, cool, pole,” Blaney said. “I’m a pretty average road racer, honestly. I work really hard to try to get better at it and try to figure out ways to be better.

“We’ve got to find a little bit of race pace, but it’s nice to have one-lap speed. It’s fun when you can sit on the pole at a place where I’m not very good.”

Shane van Gisbergen came up short by .33 seconds and will start beside Blaney on the front row for Sunday’s Go Bowling at The Glen.

Van Gisbergen, an acknowledged road course specialist, said, “Man, it’s amazing how close it all is for a road course. My laps were OK, and there probably were some things I could have fixed. Decent start for tomorrow.”

Blaney also noted that winning the pole and winning the race are two very different things.

“Ninety laps is going to be a little harder to beat him (van Gisbergen) tomorrow, but gotta start somewhere,” he said. “It’s more neat for me because we had an absolutely abysmal weekend here last year. We’ve worked really hard on where we need to get better here, where I need to do a better job, how can we improve our race cars. So it was like a big dual effort.

“Just proud of their dedication,” Blaney continued, “to get better at this place and improve the car from last year, and I tried to work on a lot of things. I consider myself a pretty average road-course racer and I’ve worked really hard on trying to get better, where can I improve my driving skills and styles and compete a little bit more at these places, and it’s neat when that all comes together.

“I try to take these things one day at a time. Tomorrow is a whole different task, but it’s nice to have done our job really well today and now about focusing on trying to make 90 good laps tomorrow.”

Chase Briscoe, Ross Chastain, and Kyle Busch completed the top five fastest drivers during the qualifying session. Michael McDowell, Alex Bowman, Carson Hocevar, Christopher Bell and William Byron will start in the top-10.

You can watch Sunday’s Go Bowling at The Glen at 2 p.m. ET on the USA Network with radio coverage provided by MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

Starting Lineup
Watkins Glen International
Go Bowling at The Glen