Qualifying report
NASCAR Cup Darlington
William Byron earns pole for the Southern 500 at Darlington
Thanks to William Byron, Cole Trickle is going to get a chance to win a second time at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway.
Jim Utter
Edited: Aug 31, 2019, 8:10 PM
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Byron, who drives the No. 24 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, won the pole for Sunday night’s Southern 500, driving a car featuring the livery of the fictional race car driver Trickle from the movie, “Days of Thunder.”
In the movie, Trickle – whose character was based loosely on the late racer Tim Richmond – won his first NASCAR Cup series race at Darlington.
Byron, 21, is also looking for his first career win and his average lap speed of 172.487 mph withstood numerous challenges before he secured his fourth pole of the 2019 season.
“It’s awesome to get this City Chevrolet No. 24 on the pole and just see what we can do for 500 miles,” said Byron, who has become just the third driver in NASCAR history to win the pole for the Daytona 500, Coke 600 and Southern 500 in the same season.
“It seems we put effort into some of these qualifying efforts knowing how important track position is and we can have that No. 1 pit stall all day long and all night long, it’s going to be a big deal.
“We’ll see what happens. It’s a really long race. I just got to run all 500 miles. We’re in a good spot in points so I think we can be aggressive.”
Asked how his car was in race trim in Friday’s practice, Byron said: “I thought we were solid. You’re always looking for more rear grip, more turn. It’s typical of short track or slick race track things. I thought our rear grip was better toward the end of practice.
“Off of (Turn) 4 wasn’t quite as good as we wanted it to be but we made some good adjustments overnight and leaned on our teammates, too, and I think we’re in a decent spot for tomorrow. It’s all about patience and trying to get to the last 100 laps with a good shot at it and a clean right-side, too.”
Brad Keselowski ended up second (172.088 mph) and Kyle Larson was third (171.842 mph). Kurt Busch and Daniel Suarez rounded out the top-five.
Completing the top-10 starters are Jimmie Johnson, Joey Logano, Chase Elliott, Denny Hamlin and Ryan Blaney.
Trouble for Kyle Busch
Kyle Busch never got up to full speed during his qualifying run and said over his team radio that he may be “blowing up.” “I don’t know if it’s the motor or the transmission,” Busch said.
After returning to the garage, Busch’s Joe Gibbs Racing team was able to re-fire his engine without a problem but continued to look for the cause of the problem.
Late Saturday afternoon, NASCAR announced Busch's team elected to change engines so he will start Sunday night's 500 from the rear of the field.
Busch ended up posting the 33rd-fastest speed.
Matt DiBenedetto’s No. 95 Toyota failed pre-qualifying inspection twice on Saturday, which resulted in the ejection of the team’s car chief for the remainder of the weekend and a loss of 15 minutes of practice next weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Cla # Driver Manufacturer Laps Time Gap Interval Mph 1 24 
William Byron Chevrolet 1 28.510 172.487 2 2 Brad Keselowski Ford 1 28.576 0.066 0.066 172.088 3 42 Kyle Larson Chevrolet 1 28.617 0.107 0.041 171.842 4 1 Kurt Busch Chevrolet 1 28.630 0.120 0.013 171.764 5 41 
Daniel Suarez Ford 1 28.704 0.194 0.074 171.321 6 48 Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet 1 28.724 0.214 0.020 171.202 7 22 Joey Logano Ford 1 28.756 0.246 0.032 171.011 8 9 Chase Elliott Chevrolet 1 28.766 0.256 0.010 170.952 9 11 Denny Hamlin Toyota 1 28.787 0.277 0.021 170.827 10 12 Ryan Blaney Ford 1 28.801 0.291 0.014 170.744 11 4 Kevin Harvick Ford 1 28.812 0.302 0.011 170.679 12 37 Chris Buescher Chevrolet 1 28.829 0.319 0.017 170.578 13 14 Clint Bowyer Ford 1 28.831 0.321 0.002 170.566 14 3 Austin Dillon Chevrolet 1 28.841 0.331 0.010 170.507 15 20 Erik Jones Toyota 1 28.848 0.338 0.007 170.466 16 88 Alex Bowman Chevrolet 1 28.855 0.345 0.007 170.425 17 21 Paul Menard Ford 1 28.872 0.362 0.017 170.324 18 8 Daniel Hemric Chevrolet 1 28.892 0.382 0.020 170.206 19 95 Matt DiBenedetto Toyota 1 28.905 0.395 0.013 170.130 20 47 Ryan Preece Chevrolet 1 28.910 0.40 0.005 170.100 21 17 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Ford 1 28.931 0.421 0.021 169.977 22 19 Martin Truex Jr. Toyota 1 28.956 0.446 0.025 169.830 23 34 Michael McDowell Ford 1 29.017 0.507 0.061 169.473 24 6 Ryan Newman Ford 1 29.019 0.509 0.002 169.461 25 00 Landon Cassill Chevrolet 1 29.087 0.577 0.068 169.065 26 38 David Ragan Ford 1 29.097 0.587 0.010 169.007 27 32 Corey Lajoie Ford 1 29.103 0.593 0.006 168.972 28 43 Darrell Wallace Jr. Chevrolet 1 29.163 0.653 0.060 168.625 29 13 Ty Dillon Chevrolet 1 29.173 0.663 0.010 168.567 30 10 Aric Almirola Ford 1 29.229 0.719 0.056 168.244 31 15 Ross Chastain Chevrolet 1 29.239 0.729 0.010 168.186 32 36 Matt Tifft Ford 1 29.272 0.762 0.033 167.997 33 18 Kyle Busch Toyota 1 29.385 0.875 0.113 167.351 34 77 Reed Sorenson Chevrolet 1 29.764 1.254 0.379 165.220 35 52 J.J. Yeley Ford 1 29.796 1.286 0.032 165.042 36 51 B.J. McLeod Ford 1 30.070 1.560 0.274 163.538 37 27 Joe Nemechek Chevrolet 1 30.260 1.750 0.190 162.512 38 54 Garrett Smithley Chevrolet 1 30.568 2.058 0.308 160.874 39 66 Joey Gase Toyota 1 30.888 2.378 0.320 159.207
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