NASCAR News: Ryan Blaney wins Cup pole in Bristol

Ryan Blaney will lead the 37-car field to the green flag in Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway after storming to the pole position in Saturday’s Bush’s Beans Qualifying.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

Blaney wheeled his No. 12 Team Penske Dark Horse Ford Mustang around the 0.533-mile concrete bullring at 127.064 mph to earn his second pole in 19 Cup Series starts at Bristol — and the 13th of his career.

Four-time season winner Tyler Reddick will line up alongside him on the front row after posting a 126.871 mph lap in the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota.

Blaney has enjoyed strong runs at the legendary short track before, winning in both the CRAFTSMAN Truck Series and Xfinity Series. A Cup Series victory, however, has remained just out of reach.

“It’s been a pretty good track for us,” Blaney said. “I feel like we’ve led a lot of laps early and we just kind of fade to a third- to fifth-place car at the end of the race. We worked really hard on trying to figure out how to look ahead to the end of the race at this place because I feel like it kind of gets away from us. I’ve tried to do a better job, here especially, of thinking where the track is going to go at lap 300, 400-plus and try to be a little bit more in contention when it comes down to that.”

A win Sunday afternoon (3 p.m. ET, FS1 and PRN Radio) would put Blaney in rare company. He would join an elite list of drivers — Mark Martin, Joey Logano, Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski — who have won at Bristol in all three major NASCAR national series.

“I would definitely like to win here,” Blaney added after turning one of the strongest 10-lap averages in practice (123.393 mph). “It would be cool to win here in all three series, so hopefully we can accomplish that.”

The Cup Series is debuting a new short-track package featuring 750-horsepower engines and a softer tire compound. Blaney said the fresh rules package — and the unpredictability that comes with it — is exactly what he enjoys.

“I enjoy it when we have new rules like we had today at this track for the first time,” he said. “I’m a pretty open-minded person… Repetitiveness can sometimes get boring, so when you have these new things and an unpredictability with the package, you don’t know what to expect. That stuff is fun. It’s fun to work through it with your team. It makes it pretty exciting behind the wheel for sure.”

First impressions confirmed the cars will be a handful. Blaney noted the package showed “some fangs” right away.

“It’s a handful, that’s for sure,” he said. “I thought our pace was pretty good in practice, but I was having to work really hard to keep the pace and about busted my butt a couple times… If it’s warmer tomorrow and the sun is out, it’s gonna be even more of a handful. You’re gonna see a lot of snap loose off of corners… and some uh-oh moments when you’re trying to throttle down and pass somebody.”

Chase Briscoe qualified third at 126.779 mph in the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Riley Herbst turned the fourth-fastest lap (125.679 mph) to give 23XI Racing two cars in the top four. Ty Gibbs, who led 201 laps in his most recent Bristol start, lined up fifth. Ross Chastain was the fastest Chevrolet in sixth, followed by Chris Buescher, Kyle Larson, Austin Cindric and Carson Hocevar.

Post-qualifying inspection delivered setbacks for several teams. The cars of Larson, Chastain, Cole Custer and Knoxville-native Chad Finchum each failed inspection twice, resulting in the ejection of their car chiefs and the loss of pit selection for Sunday’s race. Michael McDowell’s No. 71 Chevrolet also failed twice, costing his team an engineer and pit choice.

With the new package promising close racing and plenty of action on the high-banked concrete, Blaney and the rest of the field will find out Sunday just how much bite Bristol’s latest chapter will deliver.

Food City 500 Qualifying Results