KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Kyle Busch completed a Joe Gibbs Racing sweep of Coors Light Pole Qualifying at Kansas Speedway, steamrolling to his eighth NASCAR XFINITY Series pole of the season on Saturday morning.
The effort came less than 24 hours after his teammate Matt Kenseth scored the Sprint Cup pole at the tricky 1.5-mile oval.
Busch used the draft to post a time of 29.654 seconds (182.100 mph) in his No. 18 NOS Energy Drink Chevrolet, notching his series-record 56th career pole in the series and first at Kansas.
“Our car is really fast. It’s been really good since the guys rolled it off the truck this weekend and I feel pretty good about our chances,” said Busch, who is seeking his third-straight Kansas XFINITY win. “This is the car we should have won the race at Chicagoland (Speedway) with, so we know it’s fast and it’s had good speed. We just have to keep it (up front).”
“This is a different day. The groove is going to move around a little bit, and the cloud cover is different than what we came here expecting, but I think we’ll be fine and we’ll see what happens.”
Busch’s teammate Erik Jones, who led the second knockout round, timed in second-fastest in the final round – posting a time of 29.703 seconds (181.800 mph) in the No. 20 Reser’s Fine Foods Toyota.
“We were definitely good in qualifying, but we didn’t quite have the speed that the 18 (Busch) had,” Jones said. “I think he got a little bit better tow than we did. Overall, though, we’ve got a good car and it’s one I think we can race with. We just need to see what happens come race time and go out to win.”
Kyle Larson was third-quick (29.837/180.983) ahead of the third JGR Toyota, piloted by Daniel Suarez (29.893/180.644).
Justin Allgaier completed the top five ahead of Austin Dillon, Ty Dillon, Elliott Sadler, Blake Koch, Regan Smith, Joey Logano and Brennan Poole.
Five of the eight championship-eligible drivers in the Round of 8 advanced through all three rounds of knockout qualifying.
Matt DiBenedetto was poised to make a shock appearance in the final round for TriStar Motorsports, but was bumped out by Poole inside the closing minute of round two and will start 13th (30.168/178.998) as a result.
Chase contenders knocked out in round two included Darrell Wallace Jr. (15th), Brendan Gaughan (18th) and Ryan Reed (22nd).
Cole Custer was another big name knocked out in the second round, and he will start 19th in a fourth JR Motorsports Chevrolet on Saturday afternoon.
Two incidents in the opening round slowed the pace: a caution for debris seven minutes in and a spin by Jennifer Jo Cobb as the first round came to a close.
The opening round was also rife with drivers who were not on pit road when the session began due to inspection issues, seeing two dozen drivers back in the inspection line as the opening green flag flew. For more on that story, click here.
Josh Wise and Morgan Shepherd were the two drivers who failed to make the 40-car starting field.
