Martin Truex Jr. narrowly beat Ty Gibbs to earn the pole for the Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway. Truex turned a lap of 94.159 mph, just ahead of Gibbs’ 94.115 mph lap.
Chase Briscoe qualified third at 94.106 mph, leading three Stewart-Haas Racing cars in the top 10. Denny Hamlin will roll off fourth and Kyle Larson, the only Chevrolet to start in the top 10, qualified fifth.
Bubba Wallace will start sixth, and last week’s Homestead-Miami Speedway winner Christopher Bell qualified seventh. Alongside Bell, Kevin Harvick will begin his final Martinsville race in eighth.
The Fords of Ryan Preece and Brad Keselowski round out the top 10.
Ryan Blaney will roll of as the first playoff driver outside the top 10, starting in 11th. Blaney, who enters the race just above the playoff cut, lines up beside Aric Almirola, who just announced he will not return to Stewart-Haas Racing in 2024.
Just behind this pair, Ross Chastain returns to the site of his viral Hail Melon move from 2022, starting 13th. Chase Elliott will start 14th, in need of a win if he wants to advance the No. 9 Chevrolet into the owner’s championship for Hendrick Motorsports.
William Byron, 30 points ahead of the cut line, will start 16th after just missing the top five in the first group. Chris Buescher lines up behind Byron in 18th.
Tyler Reddick’s first lap showed enough speed to start the No. 45 in 19th. While slowest of the playoff cars, Reddick made a mistake chasing more speed on his second lap. In turns 3 and 4, Reddick’s Toyota jumped sideways, eventually spinning all the way around.
Reddick does not need to win on Sunday, but he enters 10 points behind the cut line. Toyota teammates Hamlin and Truex need to make up 17 points to the cut. Buescher will need to win to advance to the Championship 4.
Cup Series Lineup at Martinsville
The Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway will run on Oct. 29. The Round of 8 concludes, starting at 2 p.m. ET on NBC.
About the author
Caleb began sports writing in 2023 with The Liberty Champion, where he officially covered his first NASCAR race at Richmond in the spring. While there, Caleb met some of the guys from Frontstretch, and he joined the video editing team after graduating from Liberty University with degrees in Strategic Communications and Sports Journalism. Caleb currently work full-time as a Multi-Media Journalist with LEX 18 News in Lexington, Kentucky and contributes to Frontstretch with writing and video editing. He's also behind-the-scenes or on camera for the Happy Hour Podcast, live every Tuesday night at 7:30!
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