Clint Bowyer wins pole for NASCAR playoff opener at Las Vegas
Stewart-Haas Racing’s drivers have qualified in the top four positions for the second time in two seasons.
Clint Bowyer will start first for Sunday night’s race at Las Vegas while his teammates will line up in the three spots behind him. Daniel Suarez starts second while Kevin Harvick starts third and Aric Almirola starts fourth. SHR last went 1-2-3-4 at Talladega last fall.
The team dominated that Talladega race, though the type of racing we’ll see at Las Vegas will be quite different.
The pole is Bowyer’s first in exactly 12 years. Kind of crazy. Bowyer last started first at a September race at New Hampshire in 2007.
While SHR qualified up front, Joe Gibbs Racing seems to have cars designed to work better during Sunday’s race in traffic than during single-car qualifying laps. Denny Hamlin qualified 13th and Kyle Busch was 20th while both Martin Truex Jr. and Erik Jones qualified outside the top half of the field.
Sunday’s race starts just after 7 p.m. ET on NBCSN. It’s the first time that NASCAR has run the Las Vegas race in primetime on the east coast and the race will go head-to-head with NBC’s Sunday Night Football. It will also go green just after 4 Las Vegas time with a forecast high temperature of 100 degrees for the city.
Qualifying results
1. Clint Bowyer
2. Daniel Suarez
3. Kevin Harvick
4. Aric Almirola
5. Kurt Busch
6. Daniel Hemric
7. Austin Dillon
8. Chase Elliott
9. Jimmie Johnson
10. Michael McDowell
11. David Ragan
12. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
13. Denny Hamlin
14. William Byron
15. Kyle Larson
16. Ryan Preece
17. Ryan Newman
18. Brad Keselowski
19. Alex Bowman
20. Kyle Busch
21. Paul Menard
22. Joey Logano
23. Ryan Blaney
24. Martin Truex Jr.
25. Matt DiBenedetto
26. Erik Jones
27. Ty Dillon
28. Chris Buescher
29. Matt Tifft
30. Landon Cassill
31. Bubba Wallace
32. Ross Chastain
33. Corey LaJoie
34. Garrett Smithley
35. BJ McLeod
36. JJ Yeley
37. Reed Sorenson
38. Joe Nemechek
39. Joey Gase
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
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