While on the hunt for his 100th victory in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, Kyle Busch has claimed the pole for Saturday Afternoon’s Tennessee Lottery 250 at Nashville Superspeedway, his 70th pole position in the Xfinity Series and the 167th pole for Joe Gibbs Racing in the series.
Busch’s lap of 30.420 seconds | 157.396mph was the fastest in the qualifying session, besting series points leader Austin Cindric’s lap of 30.556 | 156.696mph by over a tenth of a second. Busch’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Harrison Burton and Daniel Hemric were third and fourth, with AJ Allmendinger rounding out the top-five starters.
Jeb Burton, Brandon Jones and Myatt Snider rounded out the top-eight drivers, while Jade Buford put down an incredible lap to secure the ninth-place starting spot for himself and Big Machine Racing. Noah Gragson will start in 10th.
The single-car qualifying session ran smoothly, with the exception of two minor hiccups along the way. Brandon Jones – who qualified seventh — spun leaving pit road on his warmup lap, but was able to avoid flat-spotting any of his tires and continued with a solid run. Alex Labbe – who will start 29th — smacked the wall off of turn four on his timed lap, an impact which didn’t appear to leave much damage to his Fanatics Chevrolet.
Chad Finchum (No. 42), Timmy Hill (No. 13), Jeffrey Earnhardt (No. 0), Colby Howard (No. 15), Dillon Bassett (No. 90) and Gray Gaulding (No. 52) all failed to qualify for Saturday Afternoon’s event, the 15th of the 2021 NASCAR Xfinity Series season.
