Carson Hocevar was the fastest in practice and followed it by winning his first career Cup pole Saturday at Texas Motor Speedway.
“I’m excited to be able to lead my first-ever Cup race to the green,” the 22-year-old Hocevar told Prime after claiming the pole.
Hocevar led the way with a lap of 191.659 mph around the 1.5-mile speedway.
He also said he was thrilled with getting the No. 1 pit stall for Sunday’s race (green flag scheduled to wave at 3:43 p.m. ET on FS1) in an event likely to have several pit stops. Last year’s race featured 16 cautions and saw some cars that finished in the top 10 pit at least eight times.
This marks back-to-back first-time pole winners in Cup. Zane Smith won his first career pole last weekend at Talladega.
Chase Elliott looks to score his first Cup points win since last year’s Texas race, while Ryan Blaney seeks to end recent struggles.
Points leader William Byron qualified second Saturday with a lap of 191.564 mph.
Austin Cindric, who won last weekend’s Talladega race, will start third after a lap of 191.523 mph.
“I feel like I left a pole lap out there,” Cindric said. “I sent it into Turn 1 and didn’t quite get to the bottom and didn’t quite maximize my exit. I guess I can be happy with where we are at, but I definitely feel like you want to do it all. We are in a great spot for (Sunday) and should have a good pit stall, so I feel good about where we are at for tomorrow. We will try to go get another one.”
Kyle Larson qualified fourth at 191.421 mph. Hocevar’s teammate at Spire Motorsports, Michael McDowell, will start fifth after a lap of 191.333 mph.
The track has produced a stretch of eight different winners in eight races.
Others did not fare as well.
Ryan Blaney will start 24th, marking the third time in the last seven races he’s qualified 24th or worse.
Joey Logano qualified 27th, the second time in the last three races he’s started 27th or worse.
Chase Elliott will start 29th, the third consecutive races he’s started 20th or worse.
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