During Saturday’s qualifying session at Kansas Speedway, NASCAR Cup Series drivers soon migrated to the top of the track—which was fine with notorious rim rider Tyler Reddick.
The last of 10 drivers to make a qualifying run in the final round, Reddick knocked Joey Logano off the provisional pole and claimed the top starting spot for Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400, the series’ second Playoff race (3 p.m. ET on USA, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
In the money round, Reddick toured the 1.5-mile speedway in 29.899 seconds (180.608 mph), nearly matching his lap of 29.853 seconds from the first round. Reddick was .037 seconds than faster than Logano (180.385 mph), who narrowly missed out on his second straight Playoff pole.
“It’s reassuring,” Reddick said of the pole-winning performance of his No. 8 Richard Childress Racing team. “The last few times we’ve been here, we’ve had a car capable of leading, and we’ve been able to do that. It’s just been a matter of putting together the whole day, which is something we’ve fought at time throughout the year…
“Starting first is great any weekend, but being able to have that first pit stall is going to be key.”
The Busch Light Pole Award was Reddick’s first at Kansas, his second of the season and third of his career—and his first on an oval.
Alex Bowman (180.216 mph) qualified third, followed by Christopher Bell (179.659 mph) and Ross Chastain (179.605 mph). Bubba Wallace, Kyle Larson, Austin Cindric, William Byron and Chris Buescher claimed grid positions six through 10, respectively.
Reddick won to NASCAR Xfinity Series championships running the wall at Homestead-Miami Speedway. That’s also where he expects to find speed on Sunday at Kansas.
“It certainly will be for large amounts of this race,” Reddick said. “I think it has the potential under green-flag cycle to move around off of that wall. The fastest car here in the spring was Kurt Busch, and he was able to really do a good job of running on the top seam.
“It’s going to lay rubber with 30-plus cars out there running all running in the majority of the same area of the race track. So I think it’s going to open up that opportunity for other lanes to some into play because there will be less rubber on it.”
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