NASCAR: Byron wins Cup pole in Kansas

William Byron scurried to the Busch Light Pole Award, recovering from a wall scrape in practice to lead Saturday’s NASCAR Cup Series qualifying at Kansas Speedway.

Byron logged a best final-round lap of 179.206 mph, putting his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet in the top starting spot for Sunday’s AdventHealth 400 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). His second pole of the season was the 10th of his Cup Series career.

Teammate Kyle Larson will share the front row after registering the second-fastest qualifying lap — 179.170 mph in the Hendrick No. 5 Chevrolet. Ross Chastain is set to start third, with last week’s winner Martin Truex Jr. fourth and Tyler Reddick finishing out the top five qualifiers.

Truex (Group A) and Chastain (Group B) were tops in their respective portions of qualifying. The five fastest from each group went for the pole position in the final round.

Pole Winner Quotes

TELL US ABOUT YOUR RUN THERE THAT BROUGHT YOUR 10TH CAREER NASCAR CUP SERIES POLE.

“Yeah, it feels great. It feels really good to get a pole. Kansas (Speedway) is where I got my first truck win and that was really exciting, and I’ve never won here again (laughs). Hopefully tomorrow can be a little bit better. We’ve been kind of inching up on it in the Cup Series at this race track. We had good runs here last year – leading the race in the spring and got a flat tire, and then finished I think sixth in the fall race. So we’ve been pretty good here, it’s just a matter of putting it all together and hopefully tomorrow is the day.”

LAST TIME WE WERE AT A TRADITIONAL 1.5-MILE RACE TRACK WAS LAS VEGAS AND YOU GOT THE WIN THERE. WHAT DO YOU FEEL LIKE CHEVROLET AND YOUR TEAM SPECIFICALLY JUST FOUND ON THE 1.5-MILE TRACKS BETWEEN LAST YEAR AND THIS YEAR?

“I don’t know. I feel like we’ve just worked really hard on the 1.5-mile tracks. We’ve gotten a better understanding of this racecar as a whole and I think the 1.5-mile tracks show that – just the fine details, the understanding of the setup, what makes speed, what the tire needs through simulation. I think we’re just kind of inching up on it. I think Las Vegas (Motor Speedway) was honestly surprising of how good we were there. Today, we missed the balance a little bit off the truck, but we were able to find it by the end of qualifying. I would say our best run there, balance-wise, was that final run and it was good enough, speed-wise, for the pole.

Just kind of feel like at this race track, in particular, we still need to work on the balance overnight. But in Vegas, we pretty much hit it off the truck and had a really good weekend.”

IS THERE DAMAGE ON YOUR CAR FROM HITTING THE WALL THAT YOU WOULD HAVE TO REPAIR?

“I hope not. It looked pretty good, didn’t it (laughs)?

No, I think it’s fine. It sounds like it was all good. I kind of drug the wall just being a dummy the second lap of practice. Drove in to run the top and just carried way too much speed. But yeah, it seems like the car is fine. The toe wasn’t bent or anything, so that’s all you really worry about with these cars. We can kind of polish up the quarter panel just to make it look nice, so we have a nice little paint scheme come Sunday.”

LAST YEAR, 23XI AND TOYOTA WAS STRONG HERE. IS THIS A STATEMENT FROM HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS TODAY TO TAKE THE FIRST TWO SPOTS?

“I don’t really think statements are made until Sunday, but yeah certainly. We want to have a good Sunday.. that’s what pays. We just have to put it together for 400 miles. Those guys are always pretty good on the long runs, especially here. So I think just working on long run pace and just trying to put the whole race together like we did at Las Vegas (Motor Speedway).

At Vegas, the good thing was that we had short, middle and long run speed. The long run speed was honestly probably the best aspect, so that’s what we’ve worked really hard on this week.”

Starting Lineup