Denny Hamlin marched his way to the Busch Light Pole Award for the Cook Out 400 at Martinsville Speedway on Saturday, March 28.
The event’s starting lineup was determined through a single-car, two-lap qualifying format. In the format, all 37 competitors vying for 37 starting spots cycled around Martinsville Speedway twice while attempting to post the fastest lap. The competitor who posted the fastest single lap was awarded the pole position.
During the qualifying session, Hamlin, who was the third-fastest competitor earlier on Saturday in practice, clocked in his fastest lap at 98.241 mph in 19.275 seconds. The lap was enough for the three-time Daytona 500 champion from Chesterfield, Virginia, to claim the top-starting spot at his home track.
With the pole, Hamlin notched his 49th NASCAR Cup Series career pole, which moves in sole possession of 10th place on the all-time poles list. The pole was also his first of the 2026 season and his fifth at Martinsville, with his previous at the track dating back to October 2019. And, it was also the fourth of this season for Toyota and the second for Joe Gibbs Racing.
Hamlin is a six-time Cup race winner at Martinsville, with his latest occurring a year ago in the spring. For Sunday’s main event, he will attempt to tie Rusty Wallace for the fourth-most Martinsville victories at seven.
“Hats off to the whole Bob’s Discount Furniture team,” Hamlin said on Prime Video. “The car was good today. I did a lot of really good things in practice and I was hoping it would get somewhere in that top eight for qualifying.” He continued, saying, “I was really concentrated on hitting my marks, doing what I needed to do. And, I thought that the track had a 2-0 in it. How to do it all over again? I thought I could, but it was good enough, and (the team) did a great job with the adjustments. Certainly, that’s gonna be a great place to start.”
Hamlin will share the front row with William Byron, the latter of whom is a three-time Martinsville winner and won last year’s fall event. Byron, who won the spring Martinsville events in 2022 and 2024, posted his fastest lap at 97.957 mph in 19.331 seconds.
“Yeah, I feel good,” Byron said. “I feel like not a lot has changed, so you know, for us, it’s just really trying to build on what we did here last fall and what we did at Bowman Gray. The tire is the same, but the horsepower is different, so just try to understand that in practice, how much that’s going to feel different.
“But yeah, I love coming here. It’s always a battle with these two tracks back-to-back, Darlington and Martinsville, I was thinking on the way up here. Just tough places, so just got to be ready and do a good job.”
Josh Berry, Ty Gibbs and Shane van Gisbergen will start in the top five, respectively, while Austin Cindric and Carson Hocevar qualified sixth and seventh, respectively. Tyle Reddick, the series’ points leader and last weekend’s winner at Darlington Raceway, will start in eighth place after he posted his lap at 97.729 mph in 19.376 seconds. Joey Logano and Chase Elliott complete the top-10 starting grid.
Notably, Bubba Wallace, who was the fastest competitor in practice, qualified in 15th place at 97.382 mph in 19.445 seconds. In addition, Brad Keselowski, who is scheduled to become the 35th competitor to achieve 600 Cup starts for Sunday’s main event and is coming off a strong runner-up result at Darlington, will start in 23rd place at 97.018 mph in 19.518 seconds. Lastly, Justin Allgaier, who is making his third start as a interim competitor for Alex Bowman and the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 entry, will start in 21st place at 97.093 mph in 19.503 seconds.
With 37 competitors vying for 37 starting spots, all made the main event.
Martinsville – Qualifying Position, Best Speed, Best Time:
- Denny Hamlin, 98.241 mph, 19.275 seconds
- William Byron, 97.957 mph, 19.331 seconds
- Josh Berry, 97.941 mph, 19.334 seconds
- Ty Gibbs, 97.921 mph, 19.338 seconds
- Shane van Gisbergen, 97.916 mph, 19.339 seconds
- Austin Cindric, 97.855 mph, 19.351 seconds
- Carson Hocevar, 97.795 mph, 19.363 seconds
- Tyler Reddick, 97.729 mph, 19.376 seconds
- Joey Logano, 97.664 mph, 19.389 seconds
- Chase Elliott, 97.649 mph, 19.392 seconds
- Christopher Bell, 97.618 mph, 19.398 seconds
- Ryan Blaney, 97.463 mph, 19.429 seconds
- Kyle Larson, 97.448 mph, 19.432 seconds
- Zane Smith, 97.387 mph, 19.444 seconds
- Bubba Wallace, 97.382 mph, 19.445 seconds
- Chris Buescher, 97.377 mph, 19.446 seconds
- Ryan Preece, 97.342 mph, 19.453 seconds
- Ross Chastain, 97.322 mph, 19.457 seconds
- Erik Jones, 97.177 mph, 19.486 seconds
- Michael McDowell, 97.133 mph, 19.495 seconds
- Justin Allgaier, 97.093 mph, 19.503 seconds
- Daniel Suarez, 97.068 mph, 19.508 seconds
- Brad Keselowski, 97.018 mph, 19.518 seconds
- Cole Custer, 96.959 mph, 19.530 seconds
- Connor Zilisch, 96.929 mph, 19.536 seconds
- Riley Herbst, 96.805 mph, 19.561 seconds
- Chase Briscoe, 96.800 mph, 19.562 seconds
- AJ Allmendinger, 96.721 mph, 19.578 seconds
- Todd Gilliland, 96.671 mph, 19.588 seconds
- Austin Dillon, 96.489 mph, 19.625 seconds
- Noah Gragson, 96.366 mph, 19.650 seconds
- John Hunter Nemechek, 96.298 mph, 19.664 seconds
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr., 96.239 mph, 19.676 seconds
- Kyle Busch, 96.097 mph, 19.705 seconds
- Cody Ware, 96.029 mph, 19.719 seconds
- Ty Dillon, 95.830 mph, 19.760 seconds
- Austin Hill, 95.055 mph, 19.921 seconds
The 2026 Cook Out 400 at Martinsville Speedway is scheduled to occur on Sunday, March 29, and air at 3:30 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN Radio, SiriusXM and HBO MAX.
