Alex Bowman on Pole for the race of the Nascar Cup series in Bristol

Bristol, Tenn. – A small sunbeam was Alex Bowman, who had to secure the pole position for Food City 500 on Sunday at the Bristol Motor Speedway.

Well, not all. Bowman also had to turn a frenzied lap in his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet during the time trips on Saturday on the 0.533-mile short distance, and that was exactly what he did.

Bowman covered the distance in 14.912 seconds (128.675 miles per hour) – the fastest round of all time in Bristol in the Nascar Cup series Next Gen Car. That was good enough to hold the Chevrolet colleague Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (128.563 miles per hour) by 0.013 seconds to secure the upper starting place for the race of the ninth Cup series of the season.

It was not just the Busch Light Pole Award where Bowman played. Extensive tire clothing in the practice lesson, which preceded qualifying compared to the spring organizer of the last year in the Thunder Valley, where tire decline was a decisive aspect of the competition.

“I think we are all prepared a lot than in the last spring,” said Bowman, who ran his lap under a cheap cloud cover – and the sun came out shortly after his qualified attempt and warm the route on otherwise cool day.

“I’m looking forward to a tire management race. It will be a lot of fun. We will see what we have,” he added.

“We started practicing with rubber that were already pulled by the Xfinity cars on the route, peeled it and the tires immediately sucked out. Yes, confusing why we do it again when we didn’t do it in autumn.

“It will be warmer tomorrow. Maybe it changes. It is really difficult to say. I think it will be (the spring race), but we will find out together, I think.”

Kyle Larson (128.511 MPH) qualified third after winning the pole position for the XFinity Series race on Saturday. Denny Hamlin, winner of the last two cup events, was fourth in the fastest Toyota with 128.460 miles per hour, and Ryan Blaney led all other Ford drivers with a fifth qualification round at 128.305 miles per hour.

In seven of the last eight cup races in Bristol, the winner came from the five best places in the starting grid – two from the pole and two from the second starting position.

Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Ty Gibbs and Christopher Bell claimed the sixth and seventh starting places, with AJ Allmenderer, Carson Hocevar and Justin Haley the eighth, ninth or 10.

Kyle Busch was the fastest in qualifying, but he turned into curve 4 in his second round and found his tires flat. Joey Logano, who qualified immediately after Busch, loosened against curve 2 and beat the outer wall with the right rear of his team No. 22 Penske Ford. Logano begins on Sunday 38 ..