Denny Hamlin comes into Sunday’s XFINITY 500 at Martinsville Speedway needing a spectacular weekend to even keep himself in contention for the NASCAR Cup Series title against Kyle Busch, and he’s started it off with a bang.
Hamlin, driver of the No. 11 Kings Hawaiian Toyota Camry XSE for Joe Gibbs Racing, laid down a heater in Saturday’s qualifying session from the half-mile paperclip, posting a time of 19.226 seconds (98.492mph) to win his 54th career pole in the NASCAR Cup Series and his sixth at Martinsville.
“That was a great lap. Truthfully, kind of hit all the marks that I wanted to hit,” Hamlin said after his qualifying lap. “The car did a lot of the things I needed it to do on my first lap, so it was a really great job by the race team, great adjustments there, and we’ll see what we got tomorrow.”
The Chesterfield, Virginia-native will be leading a front row sweep for Joe Gibbs Racing when Sunday’s 500-lapper gets underway, with his youngest teammate, Ty Gibbs, starting on the outside of the front row in the No. 54 Toyota Camry XSE.
Gibbs’ qualifying lap clocked in at 19.275, five hundredths of a second off the pole.
Kyle Larson, who enters the season’s penultimate race with a 73-point advantage over Denny Hamlin in points, was able to match the No. 11 with a strong qualifying run and will launch from the inside of the second row on Sunday – an impressive comeback after struggling mightily in practice.
Team Penske teammates Austin Cindric and Joey Logano completed the top-five.
Logano, piloting the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford Mustang, is technically still in contention for the championship, but enters Martinsville 100 points behind Larson, and will need a lot of help to keep his hopes for a fourth championship alive.
Ryan Preece was the fastest driver in practice, and will start sixth, with Hendrick Motorsports teammates Alex Bowman, William Byron, and Chase Elliott in seventh, eighth, and ninth. Josh Berry completed the top-10.
Among those still mathematically eligible for the title, Chase Briscoe will roll from the 11th position, with Tyler Reddick in 12th, Ryan Blaney in 13th, and Christopher Bell in 14th. Chase drivers Bubba Wallace (15th), Chris Buescher (18th), Daniel Suarez (24th), and Carson Hocevar (25th) also qualified outside the top-10.
Only Cody Ware, driving the No. 51 for Rick Ware Racing, failed to post a qualifying lap after the team discovered some damage to the left-front of his Chevrolet that needed to be repaired, making it so that they could not post a time in qualifying.
The XFINITY 500 will take place Sunday, November 1 at 2:00 PM ET on NBC.
Photo: Aaron Giffin, Racing America on SI (used with permission)
