Chase Briscoe and the Busch Pole Award banner must be on pretty good terms by now.
Briscoe, driving the No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry XSE for Joe Gibbs Racing, solidified his fifth pole position of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series campaign on Saturday, driving his car straight to the top of the speed charts in qualifying for the Brickyard 400.
It’s a pretty special triumph for Briscoe, who was born and raised in Mitchell, Indiana, which is located about 70 miles to South of Indianapolis Motor Speedway. While the 30-year-old driver has won on the track’s road course before in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, there is nothing like having success on the big track.
“Just being from really 70 miles down the road and coming here as a kid, I mean I got my first uniform in racing, as you drive out the tunnel in [Turns 1 and 2] there’s a brick building, that’s where I got my first ever uniform,” said Briscoe. “Just dreaming about coming to this place and sitting in the same grandstands all the fans are. I mean, I was dreaming about being on the other side of the fence and now to be able to do that is unbelievable.”
Briscoe will be leading the field to green in Sunday’s 200-lap contest around the famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway, achieving a childhood dream, and continuing to put together what has been an incredible 12 months, where he has started or finished first in each of NASCAR’s four crown jewel events – winning the pole in the DAYTONA 500, Coca-Cola 600, and Brickyard 400 in the same season.
STARTING LINEUP: 2025 Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Bubba Wallace and Erik Jones, two drivers looking to solidify their positions into the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs for 2025, will roll from second and third-place in Sunday’s 400-miler, with Tyler Reddick in fourth and Ty Gibbs in fifth wrapping a top-five sweep for Toyota GAZOO Racing.
William Byron, who works to retake the regular-season points lead from teammate Chase Elliott, will start from sixth place. Elliott, on the other hand, will start a disappointing 30th place after a tough qualifying effort.
Chris Buescher will start from seventh, with Carson Hocevar, AJ Allmendinger, and Austin Cindric rounding out the top-10. In the 11th, Shane Van Gisbergen (who earned a top-five in last year’s NASCAR Xfinity Series event at Indianapolis) earned a personal-best oval qualifying result.
Other notables starting outside the top-10 include Kyle Busch (12th), Kyle Larson (13th), Brad Keselowski (14th), Joey Logano (15th), Christopher Bell (16th), Alex Bowman (21st), Ryan Preece (23rd), Ryan Blaney (24th), and Chase Elliott (30th).
Denny Hamlin, riding the high of signing a multi-year contract extension with Joe Gibbs Racing, was on a heater of qualifying lap, and looked destined to take the pole position when he slipped off of Turn 2, smacking the outside wall and spinning down to hit the inside wall hard.
Hamlin and Joe Gibbs Racing will have to go to a backup car for Sunday’s Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Coverage of the highly anticipated event will take place on Sunday at 2:00 pm ET on TNT Sports, IMS Radio Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
