Briscoe grabs first pole start
St. Louis-area track hosts first Cup race
Chase Briscoe finally has a pole to go with his first NASCAR Cup Series victory earlier this season.
The second-year driver for Stewart-Haas Racing drove through a bobble at the end of the backstretch and turned a lap of 138.274 mph on Saturday, giving himself the best starting spot for the first time in his 51st career start heading into the Cup Series’ debut at World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Ill.
“The first round I felt like I under-drove extremely bad. The second round I felt like I over-drove,” said Briscoe, who won in March at Phoenix — a similar track.
“It’s exciting to be part of the inaugural event here,” he said, “but better to be leading the field to green.”
Austin Cindric gave Ford the front row with a lap of 137.775 mph for Team Penske, while Christopher Bell and Tyler Reddick will start in the second row and Ryan Blaney rounded out the top five in qualifying at the track just east of St. Louis.
“I mean, it’s cool to be on the pole, right? I say it all the time, I never thought I’d run a Cup race, or even run a Truck race,” Briscoe said. “I think we have a good car capable of winning. We just have to put it all together and minimize or mistakes, and as a driver, that’s something I haven’t done a very good job of so far this season.”
Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano, Aric Almirola, Harrison Burton and Ross Chastain also made the final round of qualifying.
Among those who didn’t was Brad Keselowski, who was back in 30th after another poor session. He didn’t have much speed when he unloaded Friday and lamented the changes to NASCAR’s weekend schedules, which have taken away most of the practice time that once gave teams a chance to make adjustments to their cars.
“It’s always hard to go backward, but we’ve been here three days and we had an hour to practice,” Keselowski said. “I don’t know how that saves us much money over having a 3-hour practice session.”
IndyCar
Josef Newgarden became the seventh different pole winner through seven qualifying sessions this season when he put Team Penske at the front for Sunday’s final Detroit Grand Prix on Belle Isle. Newgarden won the pole on the temporary street course for the third time in his career as time expired on Saturday’s qualifying session. Takuma Sato qualified second for Dale Coyne Racing and was followed by Meyer Shank Racing teammates Helio Castroneves and Simon Pagenaud. Pato O’Ward qualified fifth for Arrow McLaren SP and 20year-old rookie David Malukas was sixth for Coyne.
Xfinity Series
Road-course ace A.J. Allmendinger survived the wet and wild Portland International Raceway Xfinity debut with a victory Saturday. Allmendinger raced to his Xfinity-record eighth victory on a road course and 12th overall series win. He crossed the finish line in the Kaulig Racing Chevrolet 2.879 seconds in front of Myatt Snider. The 75-lap race on the 12-turn, 1.97-mile permanent road course north of downtown Portland started in heavy rain, resulting in slippery conditions. It was first NASCAR event in the region in 22 years, and a rare stand-alone event for the second-tier national series.