Logano has fastest qualifying time
Joey Logano reached 170.720 mph and turned a fast lap of 28.805 seconds Saturday at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway to clinch the top spot in qualifying for the Goodyear 400 in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Kyle Larson will start second Sunday, one row ahead of Hendrick Motorsports teammate Christopher Bell and Martin Truex Jr.
Brothers Kyle and Kurt Busch will share the third row, assuming Kyle makes the race. The younger Busch is awaiting the birth of his second child through a surrogate mother.
Trevor Bayne is on standby in case Busch has to leave Darlington for the birth.
“I think it’s always a hard decision, but I think you can live down missing a race but you’ll never live down not being there for the birth of your kid,”
Kyle Busch said.
He and everyone else up front enjoyed problemfree qualifying runs. Chase Elliott, Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin couldn’t say the same. All three will be at the rear of the field.
Elliott crashed because of a flat tire and damaged the front of his car, forcing his team to scramble to get a backup car put together.
It was the latest setback for Elliott, who was scheduled to drive in the Xfinity Series race in a fifth car for JR Motorsports but did not make the race when qualifying was canceled by rain Friday.
Harvick blew a left-rear tire in practice and did enough damage that he was unable to make a qualifying attempt.
Hamlin, who won last year’s Southern 500 at Darlington, damaged the diffuser during his qualifying run.
XFINITY SERIES
Justin Allgaier put JR Motorsports in victory lane for the third consecutive week in the Xfinity Series by winning at Darlington Raceway on Saturday.
Allgaier ended a 34-race winless streak when he passed AJ Allmendinger to start a two-lap sprint following a caution and cruised the final 2.7 miles to give team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. another victory in NASCAR’s second-tier feeder series.
Noah Gragson won two weeks ago at Talladega Superspeedway and
Josh Berry won last week at Dover Motor Speedway. Allgaier was a nonfactor at Talladega and a runnerup a week later.
This was a minor breakthrough, even though it was Allgaier’s 17th career victory in the Xfinity Series.
It was his first one in a year, with the last one also coming at Darlington.
He’s been in the mix plenty since, just not the first one across the finish line.
Allgaier had little resistance for the win. He lined up outside Allmendinger on the final restart with much newer tires and zipped by the leader as the green flag dropped. No one got near him over the final two laps, either.
Gragson finished second, followed by Riley Herbst, John Hunter Nemechek and Sam Mayer. Allmendinger faded and finished eighth.