Joey Logano came to Las Vegas Motor Speedway as its most recent winner, and he’ll begin Sunday’s race again at the top of the leaderboard.
Logano captured the pole for the Pennzoil 400 with a qualifying lap of 186.053mph (29.024s). The reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion was the only driver to crack 186mph in qualifying en route to earning his second pole at Las Vegas.
“The car was wicked good,” Logano said. “It really just handled well and obviously has really good speed which is what you hope for when you get here. You hope you make the right changes and adjustments from the fall when we were here last. Obviously, we were pretty good then but you have to keep evolving and trying things.
“It gets a little nerve-wracking when you try to make these changes that you are married to for the most part when practice starts. I think Paul (Wolfe, crew chief) made some great changes there, some good decisions. Gave me a really fast Pennzoil Mustang today that has good speed in it. Hopefully that transfers to the race tomorrow. I think it will. We have some fine-tuning to do in race trim which we will talk about tonight and try to make some adjustments tomorrow morning.”
Logano won at Las Vegas last fall. The victory clinched his spot in the Championship 4.
Sunday afternoon, Logano will be joined on the front row by William Byron who qualified second with a lap of 185.153mph.
Ryan Blaney qualified third at 184.900mph and Ty Gibbs fourth at 184.540mph. It is the first top-five start for Gibbs in the Cup Series.
Kyle Busch qualified fifth at 184.489mph, Kyle Larson sixth at 184.250mph, Brad Keselowski seventh at 184.093mph and Ross Chastain eighth at 183.755mph.
Completing the top 10 qualifiers were Austin Cindric ninth fastest at 183.667mph and Christopher Bell 10th at 183.524mph.
Alex Bowman, the defending race winner, qualified 11th. Bowman ran 184.011mph.
Three drivers did not make a qualifying attempt. Tyler Reddick and B.J. McLeod did not make it on track at all Saturday as their teams work through mechanical issues. Reddick’s team is changing an engine while McLeod suffered an axle issue.
Harrison Burton did not qualify after crashing in practice. Wood Brothers Racing is preparing a backup car for Burton to race Sunday.