John Harrelson / NKP
For the seventh time this year, Joe Gibbs Racing cars will lead the field to the green starting 1-2-3, and for Erik Jones, it’s his fifth pole of the season.
Jones put down a blistering fast lap of 51.158 seconds in the second round of qualifying to win pole for the first ever NASCAR XFINITY Series at Pocono Raceway.
Joining Jones on the front row will be his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Kyle Busch. Although Busch qualified second behind his teammate, he was still more than two tenths of a second slower than Jones with a 51.369.
Points leader Daniel Suarez will start third behind his Gibbs teammates. Suarez is one of six drivers making their first start of any kind at Pocono this weekend in the XFINITY Series. Despite lacking experience at the Tricky Triangle, Suarez has frequently said that Pocono is becoming one of his favorite tracks.
Chip Ganassi Racing’s Kyle Larson was fastest of the non-Gibbs brigade drivers. Larson will start fourth for this afternoon’s Pocono Green 250. Larson dominated an ARCA Racing Series race at Pocono in 2014 where he led 66 of 80 laps before winning his only ARCA race.
Fifth-place on the starting grid for today’s race will be Team Penske driver Joey Logano. Logano finished third last weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and put the No. 22 Ford in position to win its first race of the year, but fell short on the final lap to Denny Hamlin. Team Penske’s XFINITY Series program has been a little off this year, but the team led by rookie crew chief Brian Wilson has been getting progressively better.
Rounding out the top-10 in qualifying were Elliott Sadler, Paul Menard, Ty Dillon, Justin Allgaier and Alex Bowman.
Darrell Wallace, Jr. spun on his qualifying lap, but was able to keep his car out of the wall. Wallace will have to start from the back in 40th.
The race from Pocono is scheduled to go green this afternoon at 1:18 p.m. ET.
