DARLINGTON, S.C. — The last time the NASCAR Cup Series competed at Darlington Raceway, it was Joey Logano on the pole back in May.
It was déjà vu all over again on Saturday, as the Team Penske driver snagged his second pole of the season, at 168.521 mph.
“It’s obviously nice to start up front. We got a taste of what that first pit stall means here at Darlington and it’s nice, for sure,” Logano said. “It’s definitely really close to that pit out line and you don’t have to get all the way back up to speed, so there are definitely spots available in the pit stall. You can let the pit stall do the work and feel really good about that. It’s nice to be able to get that, but it’s just a start.
“We still have a full 500 miles to go, but, like I said, that first pit stall will pay a dividend throughout the whole race, so we’ll fire off and see what we’ve got tomorrow,” Logano continued. “Going off of practice from the spring to the race the first time, the track was much different in the race than it was in the practice. You’ve got to kind of assume some of it is gonna happen again tomorrow, so we’ll try to adjust on our car a little bit for race trim. I think we need a little bit there, but I don’t think we’re that far off. If we get a little bit more turn in our car, we’ll be right there.”
Logano scored the victory from the pole position in May as well, giving the 32-year-old a boost of momentum heading into Sunday’s Cook Out Southern 500.
“It feels different for sure. It’s hard to say why. I mean, the track temp is quite a bit different, so that’s one piece of it,” Logano said. “The other part is we changed a lot to our car to try to make it better than what we had in the spring. We weren’t the fastest car in the spring. The 1 (Ross Chastain) probably was and the 11 (Denny Hamlin) was good at times. The 18 (Kyle Busch) was good at times and we raced consistent throughout the race.
“We were good that we could run top three the whole race and the best car kind of switched around at time and we capitalized at the end when it mattered,” Logano continued. “Parts of my car feel better. Parts of my car I feel like we need to work on the balance, so I think we’re in the ballpark. I said it earlier when I sat down here, the track changed so much in the spring race from practice to the race. I assume the same thing will happen tomorrow.”
Behind Logano, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell qualified second, with the Chevrolet’s of William Byron and Tyler Reddick locking up row two.
Two non-playoff drivers made it to the second round of qualifying in Bubba Wallace and Michael McDowell.
Wallace, piloting the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota for the remainder of the season after swapping numbers this week to help the team pursue an owner’s championship, qualified eighth.
McDowell surprised in the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports machine, qualifying 10th.
It was a disappointing start to the weekend for some playoff teams, including, 2014 Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick and 2020 Cup Series champion Chase Elliott, who qualified 19th and 23rd, respectively.
Trackhouse Racing’s Daniel Suarez was not able to make a run in qualifying, after his car failed pre-race tech three times prior to the session. The driver of the No. 99 will also have to serve a pass-through penalty once the green flag waves on Sunday.
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