Kyle Busch Edges Ryan Blaney for Dover Cup Pole – Motorsports Tribune

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service

First out for final qualifying and first on the scoring chart, Kyle Busch earned his first pole position of the season Saturday with a lap of 162.191 mph in the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet around the one-mile Dover (Del.) Motor Speedway.

It’s the 34th career pole position for the two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion and he’ll start on the front row for Sunday’s Wurth 400 (2 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) alongside Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney, whose fast lap (161.951 mph) in the No. 12 Ford Mustang was a mere .033-second off Busch’s pole speed.

“The last month or so there’s definitely been a struggle with speed,” Busch said. “It’s pretty funny we were standing here talking about sitting on the pole last year too with the rainout and started first. And then my over-excitement of coming down pit road for the first time, speeding on pit road, sent us to the back and didn’t quite have the race we wanted.

“Don’t want to make that same mistake this year. The guys here did a great job. … we’re wanting to trend the right way and putting in the effort, the hours and all the extra work to figure out what’s going on and why. This is our first test. We felt like Dover and [next week’s venue] Kansas would be a really good test of some stuff. And what do ya know? It worked. Let’s go.”

This season’s three-race winner, Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron will start his No. 24 Chevrolet third, alongside last week’s Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway race winner, 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick in the No. 45 Toyota. Noah Gragson in the No. 10 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford and former Dover winner, Denny Hamlin in the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota will start fifth and sixth.

The Fords of SHR’s Chase Briscoe and last week’s Talladega pole-winner, Front Row Motorsports’ Michael McDowell were next fastest in qualifying, followed by Hendrick Motorsport’s Alex Bowman – the 2021 Dover winner – and Kaulig Racing’s A.J. Allmendinger.

It was a strong qualifying outing for the Ford Mustang, which is still looking to score its first series victory of 2024. Not only were there four Fords in the top-10, but fellow Ford drivers Austin Cindric, Josh Berry and Joey Logano will line up 11th-13th on the 37-car grid.

Of note, Joe Gibbs Racing driver Christopher Bell – a winner at Phoenix this year – spun on his qualifying lap and will have to start 33rd. …