Tyler Reddick turned his fortunes around from being slow in practice by storming back atop the leaderboard and winning the Busch Light Pole Award for the Dollar Tree 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, New Hampshire, on Saturday, August 22.
The event’s starting lineup was determined through an on-track qualifying session that consisted of a single-car, single-lap qualifying format. During the session, each of the 36 competitors vying for 36 starting spots cycled around New Hampshire Motor Speedway a single time to post the fastest lap amongst one another. The competitor who posted the fastest lap earned pole position.
During the session, Reddick, who was the 31st-fastest competitor in practice on Saturday prior to qualifying, utilized his single-lap session to post a lap at 131.094 mph in 29.054 seconds. The lap was enough for Reddick and his No. 45 Chumba Casino/23XI Racing Toyota Camry XSE team to achieve the top-starting spot for Sunday’s main event.
With the pole, Reddick notched his 15th NASCAR Cup Series career pole for his 243rd series start, his first at New Hampshire, his fourth of the 2026 season and his first since Kansas Speedway in mid-April.
Amid his practice run that left Reddick unhappy, the 2026 Daytona 500 champion from Corning, California, was left pleased with his qualifying result as he strives to cap off the New Hampshire weekend with the race victory and momentum for his 2026 Chase run.
“Oh man, I was really unhappy,” Reddick, who is ranked in fourth place in the 2026 standings, said. “I can’t recall a practice I’ve complained like that. I think we just figured out what we needed to try and work on. Obviously, we have our things that we want to work on for Sunday’s race, but yeah, just looking at qualifying and what we need to do. We just didn’t get a great opportunity in practice to lay down a lap in clean air…I don’t want to do it like we did at Richmond, start in the 30s. I had a little bit of a better metric this time around, so just had to commit and just really proud of this Chumba Casino Toyota Camry team.”
Reddick will share the front row with Josh Berry, the latter of whom posted the second-fastest lap at 131.026 mph in 29.069 seconds. Berry, who is coming off three consecutive top-10 results, also notched his second consecutive top-three starting spot for an upcoming Cup event as he remains in pursuit of a ride for the 2027 season.
William Byron, Denny Hamlin and Shane van Gisbergen will start in the top five, respectively. Christopher Bell, Ty Gibbs, Ryan Blaney, Kyle Larson and Alex Bowman completed the top-10 starting grid, respectively.
With 36 competitors vying for 36 starting spots, all made the main event.
New Hampshire – Qualifying Position, Best Speed, Best Time:
- Tyler Reddick, 131.094 mph, 29.054 seconds
- Josh Berry, 131.026 mph, 29.069 seconds
- William Byron, 130.981 mph, 29.079 seconds
- Denny Hamlin, 130.972 mph, 29.081 seconds
- Shane van Gisbergen, 130.860 mph, 29.106 seconds
- Christopher Bell, 130.555 mph, 29.174 seconds
- Ty Gibbs, 130.496 mph, 29.187 seconds
- Ryan Blaney, 130.447 mph, 29.198 seconds
- Kyle Larson, 130.443 mph, 29.199 seconds
- Alex Bowman, 130.420 mph, 29.204 seconds
- Erik Jones, 130.354 mph, 29.219 seconds
- Ross Chastain, 130.309 mph, 29.229 seconds
- Todd Gilliland, 130.278 mph, 29.236 seconds
- Zane Smith, 130.278 mph, 29.236 seconds
- Michael McDowell, 130.184 mph, 29.257 seconds
- Chris Buescher, 130.131 mph, 29.269 seconds
- Chase Briscoe, 130.126 mph, 29.270 seconds
- Ryan Preece, 130.104 mph, 29.275 seconds
- Noah Gragson, 130.011 mph, 29.296 seconds
- Connor Zilisch, 129.993 mph, 29.300 seconds
- Joey Logano, 129.949 mph, 29.310 seconds
- Carson Hocevar, 129.873 mph, 29.327 seconds
- Bubba Wallace, 129.843 mph, 29.334 seconds
- AJ Allmendinger, 129.789 mph, 29.346 seconds
- Brad Keselowski, 129.683 mph, 29.370 seconds
- Austin Cindric, 129.661 mph, 29.375 seconds
- Riley Herbst, 129.648 mph, 29.378 seconds
- Austin Hill, 129.366 mph, 29.442 seconds
- Chase Elliott, 128.937 ph, 29.540 seconds
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr., 128.867 mph, 29.556 seconds
- John Hunter Nemechek, 128.589 mph, 29.620 seconds
- Cole Custer, 128.299 mph, 29.687 seconds
- Ty Dillon, 128.273 mph, 29.693 seconds
- Austin Dillon, 128.234 mph, 29.702 seconds
- Daniel Suarez, 127.743 mph, 29.816 seconds
- Cody Ware, 127.718 mph, 29.822 seconds
The 2026 Dollar Tree 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway is scheduled to occur on Sunday, August 23, at 2 p.m. ET on USA Network, PRN Radio, SiriusXM and HBO MAX.
