Ryan Preece put down a spectacular lap at Richmond Raceway, earning pole position for the penultimate race of the regular season. Preece enters the race 34 points below the cut-line in the fight to make the playoffs, but he will start Saturday’s race with a great opportunity to score some vital stage points.
“Great adjustments by Derrick [Finley, crew chief] and everyone on this Ford Mustang,” said Preece, who now has two poles in his Cup Series career. “I can’t thank RFK enough for the opportunity. What a race car. It might not have shown up in practice, but it did in qualifying.”
Ryan Preece, RFK Racing Ford
Photo by: Getty Images
Preece lapped the Virginia short track in 22.244 seconds, earning pole by 0.087s over Tyler Reddick, who will join him on the front row in the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota. RFK Racing hasn’t started a Cup race from pole position since Texas Motor Speedway in September of 2022.
A.J. Allmendinger was very impressive as well, rebounding from an issue in pre-qualifying inspection to time in third. Denny Hamlin ended up fourth, and Chase Elliott fifth. Brad Keselowski, Bubba Wallace, Christopher Bell, Alex Bowman, and Michael McDowell filled out the remainder of the top ten.
Preece’s RFK Racing teammate Chris Buescher, who holds the 16th and final spot in the playoffs via points, qualified 12th.
The qualifying session saw times get progressively faster as the session carried on, and Preece was the 29th driver on track.
Justin Haley, Erik Jones, and Shane van Gisbergen all touched the wall at the exit of Turn 4 as they pushed their cars to the absolute limit.
Joey Logano, who wrecked in practice due to a right front tire failure, had more issues in qualifying. Team Penske attempted to repair the car, but he had to abandon the lap due to a severe tire rub.
Watch: Joey Logano makes hard contact with wall after right-front tire issue
Austin Dillon, who won this race one year ago in controversial fashion, qualified 11th. His Richard Childress Racing teammate Kyle Busch led the way in practice, but qualifying did not go as well for him as he ended up 28th.
Kyle Larson was another surprise deep in the field, as the driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet will start 30th.
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