Truex wins pole at Kentucky
SPARTA, Ky. — Kentucky Speedway’s NASCAR Cup Series winners club is seeking new members.
The biggest challenge is a demanding screening process.
Just four drivers have won the seven 400-mile Cup Series races held so far at the 1.5-mile tri-oval. Brad Keselowski (three wins) and Kyle Busch (two) were favored last July at the track, but Martin Truex Jr. got the victory on the way to winning the series championship. Matt Kenseth, the 2003 season champion, won here in 2013.
Considering points leader Busch, second-place Kevin Harvick — who has five consecutive top-10 finishes at Kentucky — and Truex have combined for 13 wins this season, the Kentucky Speedway club might stay the same tonight. That theory took on added weight Friday evening, when Truex earned the pole position at the track for the first time.
Truex turned a lap at 188.890 mph to earn the 19th pole of his Cup Series career. He led 152 of 274 laps and took the checkered flag under caution last year for his first Kentucky victory.
“To be able to come here last year and get our first win at this track was huge,” said Truex, who has won three times this season and is third in the points standings with 629, 120 behind Busch.
“We’ve been strong here the last couple of years, and hopefully we can figure out how to race up front again all night tomorrow night and have a shot at winning at the end.”
Erik Jones’ victory last Saturday night at Daytona International
“We’ve been strong here the last couple of years, and hopefully we can figure out how to race up front again all night tomorrow night and have a shot at winning at the end.” —MARTIN TRUEX JR.
Speedway offers hope a new face might emerge if everything falls in place. That started for the 22-year-old Friday when he qualified second to give Toyota a front-row sweep of qualifying.
“We ran well here last year finishing sixth, and you can look back on your notes and say, ‘OK, this is what we did to get to this point or that point,’ and that makes things quite a bit easier from a driver’s standpoint,” said Jones, who qualified at 188.739 mph. “Just having that notebook mentally and physically has been a pretty big advantage.”
Whether it’s enough to overcome the Kentucky dominance of Busch and Keselowski remains to be seen. Harvick, Keselowski and Busch are third through fifth in tonight’s starting grid.
Busch, Jones’ teammate with Joe Gibbs Racing, has seven victories across all three NASCAR national series at Kentucky. He won most recently in 2015 on the way to the Cup Series title. He
has the top driver rating (125.9) at Kentucky, with two wins, five top-five results and six top-10 finishes in the Cup Series races. Like Harvick, he has five wins this season.
Keselowski will try to continue his pattern at Kentucky in even-numbered years, having won in 2012, ’14 and ’16.
Several other drivers could be in the mix. Harvick has five top-10 finishes at Kentucky, while Joey Logano has four in six starts, including eighth last year. Busch wouldn’t be shocked if Ryan Blaney, 11th in points and hungry for his first win this season, breaks through.
“I’ve enjoyed this race track, whether it was before it got repaved or now,” Blaney said. “They’re a lot different, the two, and it’s pretty neat that Brad and Kyle have been able to win on both configurations pretty easily. I feel like our team is pretty close to where it needs to be.”
Bell the winner
Christopher Bell passed Justin Allgaier with 17 laps remaining, then held off Daniel Hemric to win the 300-mile NASCAR Xfinity Series race Friday night at Kentucky Speedway.
Bell, who started from the back of the field after spinning his No. 20 Toyota during qualifying, earned his second victory this season and the third of his career. Cup Series regular Kyle Busch (Toyota) led a race-high 111 laps and won the first stage but finished third. Allgaier was fourth in a Chevrolet, and pole winner Cole Custer (Ford) took fifth.
John Hunter Nemechek won the second stage but finished seventh in a Chevrolet.
Allgaier led Bell by eight car lengths late and seemed in control before Bell and Hemric both got past him. Hemric closed the gap some but couldn’t catch Bell, the 2017 Camping World Truck Series champion.