NEWTON, Iowa — Big track, road course or short track — Chase Briscoe has shown blistering speed in his first season in the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota on all sorts of venues.
On Saturday at Iowa Speedway, a 0.875-mile short track, Briscoe won his sixth pole of the season with a lap at 136.933 mph (23.004 seconds) to earn the top starting spot in Sunday’s Iowa Corn 350 Powered by Ethanol (3:30 p.m. ET on USA, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
That effort followed a pole run last Saturday at mammoth 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway. In fact, in the last 11 NASCAR Cup Series qualifying sessions, Briscoe has put his car on the front row seven times with five Busch Light Pole Awards and a pair of second-place starts.
Briscoe, who has eight career poles, attributed his qualifying success to a burgeoning working relationship with crew chief James Small.
“I just feel that James and the engineers on the No.19 crew have done a really, really good job, especially these last two months, of understanding what I want and what I need out of the race car,” Briscoe said.
“I’ve even kind of noticed a switch with James over the course of the last two or three weeks even, where it went from ‘We’ve got to be doing this different’ to ‘We’ve got to get the car better for you now.’
“I think that came as they started to understand me more, and our performance has been better. James does such a great job of understanding what I need, especially on Saturdays for qualifying.”
Briscoe edged William Byron (136.435 mph) for the top starting spot by 0.084 seconds. Kyle Larson, Byron’s Hendrick Motorsport teammate, was third fastest at 136.429 mph.
Byron, Larson and teammate Chase Elliott, who qualified eighth, are locked in a tight battle for the Cup Series Regular Season Championship, with Elliott leading the series by four points over Byron and 15 over third-place Larson.
Austin Cindric (136.258 mph) qualified fourth in the fastest Ford, followed by Brad Keselowski and defending race winner Ryan Blaney.
Carson Hocevar, Elliott, AJ Allmendinger and Justin Haley secured positions seven through 10 on the grid.
Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing teammates Chris Buescher and Ryan Preece will start 27th and 33rd, respectively, as they battle for berth in the Cup Playoffs. Preece trails Buescher by 42 points in the race for what is currently the final spot.
Briscoe’s Camry was the only Toyota in the top 10. Denny Hamlin, who scraped the Turn 1 wall during practice, was 11th fastest in the No. 11 JGR Toyota.
Kyle Busch crashed in Turn 1 on his 18th practice lap and damaged his No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet beyond repair. He’ll start from the rear of the field in a backup car on Sunday.
–Reid Spencer, special to Field Level Media
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