Sensational start for Stewart-Haas

FORT WORTH, Texas — Kurt Busch is on the pole, Clint Bowyer is coming off his first victory in six years and Kevin Harvick has won half of the races so far on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule.

Aric Almirola, the newcomer to the team, has been steady, too, finishing 14th or better in every race.

With Stewart-Haas Racing already off to a sensational start this season, the decade-old team will now have the top three starters in a race for the first time Sunday. Busch, Harvick and Bowyer qualified their Fords 1-2-3 at Texas Motor Speedway, while Almirola was 12th at the 1½-mile track.

“We unloaded off the truck here and went right back to the top of the board. That is pretty cool,” said Bowyer, whose victory at Martinsville before the Easter break ended his 190-race winless streak.

“It is crazy how you can get your cars with a good balance on them and really roll them through the corners good,” he said. “It seems if they are fast at one track they are going to be fast at the next.”

All four Stewart-Haas cars are in the top 11 in season points through the first six races. Harvick is seventh, followed by Bowyer at eighth, Busch 10th and Almirola 11th.

Hendrick Motorsports also has all four of its drivers in the top 20. But Alex Bowman, Jimmie Johnson, Chase Elliott and William Byron are all below the Stewart-Haas drivers in the standings.

Busch is the first three-time Cup pole sitter in Texas, where he and Harvick will make their track-record 31st starts. TMS, which opened in 1997, is hosting its 35th race. Both have one win there.

When asked why Stewart-Haas is having so much success this season, Busch was admittedly biased in his assessment. Tony Gibson, his former crew chief including for the 2017 Daytona 500 win, is now off the road in what the driver calls “a perfect role” for Gibson, who is involved in building the cars for all four teams.

Harvick won at Texas last November, and this season has won the only two races on 1½-mile tracks , at Atlanta and Las Vegas, during his three-race winning streak.

Blaney continues Xfinity streak

Three Xfinity Series races, three different drivers and three consecutive wins for the No. 22 car.

Ryan Blaney became the third different Cup Series regular in a row to win an Xfinity race in the Team Penske Ford.

He was the pole sitter and led 132 of 200 laps on an unseasonably chilly Saturday at Texas Motor Speedway.

“You never want to be the person who breaks the streak of wins, especially when a car’s been so fast,” Blaney said. “There was that reminder in the back of my head to try to get this one.”

Especially from the drivers that won the previous two before the Xfinity Series had a two-week break.

Joey Logano won in the No. 22 car at California, a week after Brad Keselowski went to Victory Lane in Phoenix.