By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service
BLANEY WINS POLE FOR SUNDAY NIGHT’S CUP RACE
HAMPTON, Ga. – Ryan Blaney claimed his second pole position of the season Saturday evening at Atlanta’s fast high-banked EchoPark Speedway – leading a Team Penske Ford front row sweep for Sunday night’s Quaker State 400 (7 p.m. ET, TNT, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Blaney’s No. 12 Team Penske Ford turned in a lap of 179.912 mph around the 1.5-mile track, besting his teammate Joey Logano’s No. 22 Ford by a slight .016-second in Busch Light Pole Qualifying.
It’s the 32-year old Blaney’s 14th career pole and marks the first front-row Penske sweep this year. All three Penske’s advanced to Saturday’s 10-car second round after dominating the top of the speed charts in round one. Austin Cindric will roll off eighth in the No. 2 Penske Ford.
The typically low-key Blaney was thrilled for the result, crediting his team for the hard work. However, the 2023 series champion was quick to remind at a high-speed, drafting track such as Atlanta, he was confident starting up front doesn’t automatically translate into a trip to Victory Lane.
Toyota, which is enjoying a dominant season in wins, failed to place a single car into the final round of qualifying.
NASCAR Cup Series championship leader Denny Hamlin will roll off 28th in the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick, who trails Hamlin by 44 points in the standings, will start 31st in the No. 45 Toyota. A five-time race winner this year, Reddick won at Atlanta this February.
Gibbs drivers Ty Gibbs and Christopher Bell will start 23rd and 32nd. And Reddick’s 23XI teammates Bubba Wallace and Riley Herbst are 23rd and 29th on the grid.
“I feel like we’ve seen that,’’ Blaney said of the Toyotas qualifying effort. “They don’t really qualify great at these speedways, just the build of their race car. So usually that means they can probably be aggressive in the draft and get in the middle and get to the top and things like that. I’m sure we’re going to see them up there.
“If you look at the spring race here and Toyotas were really, really good when it came race time. Hopefully, our balance in the race is good enough to be able to either maintain the lead or if we get shuffled back to be able to go forward. You really don’t know that until the race starts.’’
The Chevrolets of Kyle Larson (No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports) and Austin Dillon (No. 3 Richard Childress Racing ) make up row two.
Daniel Suarez will start fifth with the Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets of Alex Bowman and defending race winner Chase Elliott, Cindric, Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain and Brad Keselowski owner-driver of the No. 6 Roush Fenway Keselowski Ford rounding out the top 10.
The front row start is especially significant for the three-time series champion Logano who is enduring one of the most challenging seasons of his Hall of Fame-bound career. He’s still not locked into the top 16 field that will ultimately settle the title in the 10-race Chase. Logano’s ranked 18th, 16 points behind 16th-place Erik Jones.
“The good news is the Hunt Brothers Pizza Mustang is fast and that speed you see in qualifying will usually show up in the race,’’ said Logano, a two-time Atlanta winner. “I’m proud to see the speed that’s there and the handling seemed fine in qualifying.
“I feel like our team can handle these speedways really well and you can remember what happened here last Fall [he wrecked after leading laps and winning the pole position] so there’s no guarantee you see the end of it.
“But,’’ he added with a smile, “The speed’s there and that’s half the battle, so we know we have that.’’
DÉTENTE. … OR NOT
As tends to happen during the hot summer run to the Playoffs, patience wanes and on-track incidents heat up between drivers. That’s been the case for Trackhouse Racing’s Shane Van Gisbergen and Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Hill, who have been in some recent high-profile dust-ups over the last three years and more recently at San Diego in June and last week at Chicagoland.
The two drivers were called to a pre-qualifying meeting with NASCAR Cup Series officials Saturday afternoon in the EchoPark Speedway garage. The hope from NASCAR was a reminder of proper racing decorum after the pair’s in-race run-ins.
Hill emerged from the NASCAR officials ‘hauler” and told reporters afterward that he hoped the on-track tete-e-tete was settled between them.
Van Gisbergen – who noted it was his “first time” being called into the hauler for a discussion – did not stop to chat with reporters when he exited the meeting but later explained during his scheduled media availability that bad blood may still remain.
“One person was contrite and the other was not,’’ Van Gisbergen said, implying Hill was still charged up about the situation, adding, “One person was more remorseful than the other.’’
“I want to move on but he’s not at that point,’’ Van Gisbergen said.
BILLBOARD FUN AMONG TEAMMATES
All season Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing teammates Chris Buescher and Ryan Preece have had a popular feud – all fun, full of high jinx and practical jokes. And Preece certainly raised the bar this weekend.
On four billboards already purchased by EchoPark Speedway and located on the interstate highways leading to the track, Preece had one message that says “Visit Prosper, TX 843 miles” – a nod to the Texan Buescher’s hometown. On another, a photo of Buescher with a wig on and shawl around his shoulders, the message says, “Come see me race this weekend!”
In a video on social media shows Preece grinning and calling the signs “a thing of beauty.’’
Buescher said he was initially convinced that the signs were fake or AI-generated when he saw Preece’s posts, but was alerted multiple times by people driving in Atlanta that they had seen the billboards.
“I guess I’ve made it,’’ Buescher said smiling, “When your face is on a billboard, either we’ve done something real well or if you’ve been hurt in a motorcycle accident, I’ve got you,’’ Buescher said smiling, and promising he would return the favor in some way at some point.
“I promise it will be equally as much fun, if not more.’’
The big Atlanta drafting track is a thing of beauty to Buescher, 33, who has been particularly good in this style of racing on the big tracks such as Atlanta, Daytona and Talladega, Ala. He’s coming off a ninth place finish at Atlanta in February, was runner-up at Talladega in April and has been especially good at Daytona, winning the 2023 summer race there. He’s finished top-10 in six of the last seven Daytona races.
Buescher is the only one of the three RFK drivers currently among the playoff top-16 in points. He’s ranked seventh – three-points up on last week’s race winner, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Chase Briscoe. He has nine top-10 finishes through the opening 19 races with a best showings of runner-up at Michigan and third place on the Watkins Glen, N.Y. road course.
And Buescher knows this weekend will be especially important setting the tone for the regular season finale run.
“There’s no way we can afford to give anything,’’ Buescher said. “You can’t be reckless. You can’t give anybody an inch. We still have to perform at a high level. We still have to do our work ahead of time and come into these weekends and be prepared to put in our max effort.
“With that, we’ll be fine on making the Chase, but that’s ultimately not the goal. It’s realizing and I think seeing it more and more out there that if you can start the Chase in fifth or sixth spot, or better, then you have a shot to win a title and we’re just outside of that, so we have to step up to be able to get to that point to where we’re not just a participant but a contender at the end.”
GIBBS BREAKOUT SEASON
Ty Gibbs answered his 2022 NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series championship with the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series Rookie of the Year honors and this season, not only claimed his first NASCAR Cup Series win at Bristol Motor Speedway but has maintained his first real bid toward a chance at the series title.
Gibbs comes to Atlanta ranked fourth in the championship standings – a comfortable 43 points ahead of 2020 series champion Chase Elliott. It’s a career-high mark for the driver of the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota at this point in the season.
With 14 races remaining in the season, the 23-year-old has already equaled his career best season-long mark for top-10s (12). And his seven top-five finishes is only one off his previous best full season mark. Perhaps most amazingly, he’s put together the best championship run of his four-year career in NASCAR’s big leagues with four DNFs. Only Trackhouse Racing rookie Connor Zilisch (seven) has more.
