The No. 18 XFINITY Series car of Joe Gibbs Racing is as fast as ever this weekend with Denny Hamlin behind the wheel. Hamlin topped both practice sessions on Friday and capped off the trifecta by winning the pole for the Sport Clips Haircuts VFW 200 on Saturday. Hamlin set a lap speed of 172.209 mph to bump fellow Cup Series regular Kevin Harvick off the top sport. Rookies Daniel Hemric and Cole Custer took the second row on the grid, with Ty Dillon rounding out the top 5.
Another rookie, William Byron, set the sixth-quickest time, edging his teammate, point leader Elliott Sadler, who wound up seventh. Brennan Poole, Austin Dillon and Joey Logano completed the top 10.
Reed Sorenson failed to qualify after a mechanical failure prevented him from completing a lap in the session. He’s the only driver to miss the race.
The green flag for the race will be at 3:45 Saturday afternoon.
Sport Clips Haircuts VFW 200 Lineup
About the author
Amy is an 20-year veteran NASCAR writer and a six-time National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) writing award winner, including first place awards for both columns and race coverage. As well as serving as Photo Editor, Amy writes The Big 6 (Mondays) after every NASCAR Cup Series race. She can also be found working on her bi-weekly columns Holding A Pretty Wheel (Tuesdays) and Only Yesterday (Wednesdays). A New Hampshire native whose heart is in North Carolina, Amy’s work credits have extended everywhere from driver Kenny Wallace’s website to Athlon Sports. She can also be heard weekly as a panelist on the Hard Left Turn podcast that can be found on AccessWDUN.com's Around the Track page.
A daily email update (Monday through Friday) providing racing news, commentary, features, and information from Frontstretch.com
We hate spam. Your email address will not be sold or shared with anyone else.