For the fifth time this season, Kyle Busch will lead the field to the green flag for the start of the XFINITY Series race. With a speed of 130.792 mph, the No. 18 Toyota narrowly beat out his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Erik Jones.
The pole is Busch’s 53rd of his XFINITY Series career, and the 15th pole for Joe Gibbs Racing in 2016.
In final practice on Friday, Jones was 12th on the board, over three-tenths of a second behind Busch. The second-place effort marks his 17th top-10 start of 2016.
“I feel good about it,” Jones said. “Yesterday, I didn’t think we had much front side speed and we were able to get a lot better over night. I feel like I got a little bit better over night and now I think something that we can contend with Kyle [Busch]. We were pretty far off yesterday, but I feel like we are quite a few steps closer this morning.”
Brad Keselowski was third on the board at 129.834 mph, over two-tenths off Busch. After winning back-to-back owner’s championships, Team Penske is still looking for it’s first win of the season.
Daniel Suarez. the third JGR driver will start from fourth (129.349 mph) Â and Alex Bowman rounds out the top five (129.309 mph).
Elliott Sadler, Austin Dillon, Justin Allgaier, Brennan Poole and Ty Dillon make up the top 10.
Blake Koch will start just outside the top 10 in 11th, but was fourth in the first round of qualifying, which was a bit of a shock from where Kaulig Racing was in practice on Friday.
“We didn’t unload very good,” Koch said. “We got it driving a lot more like I like it, but it’s still not exactly where I need it to be up front. But here at Kaulig Racing, we should be pretty excited about making the third round no matter what. We’re running top top 15 and setting realistic expectations to come here and be top 15. We’ve been able to do that almost every weekend.”
The green flag is set to fly shortly after 4:30 p.m. ET, where Denny Hamlin is the defending winner.
About the author
Dustin joined the Frontstretch team at the beginning of the 2016 season. 2020 marks his sixth full-time season covering the sport that he grew up loving. His dream was to one day be a NASCAR journalist, thus why he attended Ithaca College (Class of 2018) to earn a journalism degree. Since the ripe age of four, he knew he wanted to be a storyteller.
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