Kyle Busch won the pole for tonight’s NRA American Warrior 300 NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Busch, driving his own No. 54 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota, qualified at 176.280 miles per hour, best of the 44 cars setting time on the hot, slick, 1.54-mile Atlanta track.
The pole was the 24th in 237 career Nationwide starts for Busch, but the first for his own team in the series. Busch is doing triple duty this weekend, having already finished second in Friday night’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race.
“It’s very cool,” said Busch. “Certainly you want to win as many as you can, races or poles. … Good lap for us in the Monster Energy Toyota.”
Right behind Busch was defending series champion Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who had a lap of 176.173 mph in the No. 6 Roush Fenway Racing Ford Fusion.
Third was Kevin Harvick, 176.000 mph in the No. 33 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet. Kasey Kahne ran 175.721 mph in the No. 38 Turner Motorsports Chevrolet, which will put him on the outside of Row 2.
Starting on Row 3 will be Denny Hamlin and Sam Hornish Jr.
Elliott Sadler, Brad Keselowski, Austin Dillon and Mike Bliss completed the top 10.
Travis Pastrana qualified 16th, one position ahead of Danica Patrick.
John Jackson was the only driver to miss the show.
Tonight’s race is the 24th of 33 on the NASCAR Nationwide Series schedule. Sadler leads defending series champion Stenhouse by 19 points. Hornish is third, followed by Dillon (-35). No one else is in serious title contention.
Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100.
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