Harvick to start first at repaved speedway
Drivers learn as they go, call Texas race wide open.
Kevin Harvick quickly got up to speed on the new pavement at Texas Motor Speedway, while some other top drivers never made it on the track for qualifying.
Harvick, in a Ford, won all three rounds of NASCAR Cup Series qualifying Friday, earning his 19th career pole with a lap of 198.405 mph during the third and final segment on the 1.5-mile track. The track is completely repaved this year and Turns 1 and 2 are reconfigured.
“It’s been a stressful day, coming and breaking in a new racetrack and then going out there and running as fast as we had to run for qualifying,” said Harvick, who won the pole for the first time in 29 Cup starts at Texas.
Nine of the 40 cars set to be in Sunday’s race didn’t make it through inspection in time to make qualifying runs. Those included cars of series points leader Kyle Larson, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and defending race winner Kyle Busch after his crash during practice earlier in the day.
“I just missed the entry point getting into Turn 1,” Busch said, referring to the area with changes.
Ryan Blaney qualified second at 198.020 mph.
“The track has come a long way since we got on it for the first time this morning,” he said. “The first hour was very sketchy getting into Turn 1. Turn 1 has been slick all day. Three and four has actually had a lot of grip. It is surprising how much throttle we can carry over there.”
The only one of the four Hendrick Motorsports drivers to get on the track for qualifying was Jimmie Johnson, but the six-time Texas winner’s car got loose and spun in the first round. He still got into the top 24, but will start 24th because he didn’t run a lap in the second round after the spin.
Larson will start 32nd, a spot ahead of Chase Elliott, who is second in points and will be in a backup car after crashing the primary No. 24 in practice.
“It’s a clean sheet of paper. You can’t pick a favorite right now,” Johnson said. “Any time there is a reconfiguration, a new asphalt, it’s a total game changer. All of past history is now out the window and it’s like we are coming here for the first time.”
“Everyone is on equal playing ground,” said Trevor Bayne, who qualified 12th. “Nobody has 10 years of notebooks to go to and say, ‘I am Kevin Harvick and I run the bottom at Atlanta and I am really good at it.’ You can’t do that now. You don’t know what you need to do.”
Harvick and Blaney said they benefited from the extra time on the track when they practiced Xfinity cars for today’s race in that series.
“I’ve got to say thank you to the Xfinity guys for letting me run that car this weekend,” said Harvick, whose other Cup pole this season was at Atlanta, where he also raced in the Xfinity Series. “I really feel like the reps allowed us to learn some things in that car that I was able to apply here.”
The track was repaved for the first time since 2001 and had drainage improvements after both NASCAR weekends and the IndyCar race at Texas in 2016 were hampered by rain.