Zane Smith earns first NASCAR Cup pole with monster lap at Talladega

Front Row Motorsports isn’t unfamiliar with the front row at superspeedways, but it’s not a place we’ve ever seen Zane Smith before today. Driving the No. 38 Ford Mustang, he was the fastest man at Talladega in both rounds of qualifying, earning his first career pole in his 55th career start. Crew chief Ryan Bergenty was ecstatic and actively celebrating on pit road as his car rocketed to the top of the time charts.

Smith’s previous best start in the Cup Series is only seventh, coming at Atlanta earlier this year. His lap time at Talladega was simply stunning, beating the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet of Kyle Busch by over a tenth (0.132s).

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“I wish I could take a lot of the credit for it, but truthfully, just a really fast FRM Ford,” said Smith. So cool — a pole-sitter in the Cup Series. That’s awesome. Just a huge shoutout to all of these guys. They’ve been doing an awesome job this year. Long race tomorrow, but a great starting spot, so I’m super stoked for this.”

Busch on the front row

Busch was the highest-qualifying Chevrolet, earning his first front row start since winning pole position at Dover one year ago. “That feels pretty good,” said Busch. “Great job by these guys … great start for RCR and our Chevrolet. Austin [Dillon] is right up there too. Looking forward to it. Obviously, it’s good to start up front. Hopefully you can hold that position and keep it up front.

“All about trying to score some stage points and stay out of the melee. You never know where that comes from. Heck, it could even come from behind you and you can be in it. But a solid start to the weekend. Just again proves that the RCR guys, when it comes to the plate racing stuff, we’re on top of that. I feel good about coming to these places, so I appreciate all of the hard work.”

Where the rest of the contenders line up

Joey Logano qualified third, Ryan Preece Ford, and Austin Dillon fifth. Chris Buescher, Austin Cindric, Josh Berry, Ryan Blaney, and Ty Gibbs filled out the remainder of the top ten.

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Advancing into the final round of qualifying were seven Fords, two Chevrolets, and on Toyota. Gibbs was the lone representative for Toyota and also the last driver to advance, beating teammate Christopher Bell by 0.012s. Joe Gibbs Racing earned pole position in this year’s Daytona 500, but 500 pole-sitter Chase Briscoe was only 17th in Talladega qualifying.

Some other notable names starting deeper in the field include Bubba Wallace in 20th, Brad Keselowski 22nd, Kyle Larson 25th, Tyler Reddick 26th, Chase Elliott 30th, Ross Chastain 32nd, and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. — the most recent winner at Talladega — only reaching 35th on the grid. The good news for Stenhouse is that he also started outside the top-30 when he won that race last fall.

Single-car qualifying around the 2.66-mile superspeedway was completed without any mechanical issues or on-track incidents.

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