Ryan Blaney is a bridesmaid no more.
After qualifying second in three of the season’s first 10 races, Blaney busted through Friday night for his first career pole at Kansas Speedway. Blaney’s lap of 189.600 mph bested his Ford Racing teammate, Joey Logano, who qualified second at 189.540 mph.
It is Blaney’s first pole in 65 career starts. With it, Blaney is also now qualified for The Clash, the non-points event, at Daytona International Speedway.
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“It feels really good,” Blaney said. “We got better and better each round, and that’s all you can ask for. Honestly, I didn’t think I got through that lap that great and it came up a pretty decent time and it was enough for it.
“I think we’ve ran second three times this year, so that was getting old. It’s so cool to sit on the pole with our Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford, we’ve been working really hard at it and been getting really close. That’s something I really wanted to do.”
Martin Truex Jr., Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Kyle Busch rounded out the top five. Busch is the defending winner at Kansas. Kurt Busch, Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick, Kyle Larson, and Chase Elliot completed the top 10.
All 40 cars entered in the Go Bowling 400 made the starting grid. However, not all of them got to qualify because of issues at the Laser Inspection Station (LIS).
Although NASCAR gives teams hours after practice to go through pre-qualifying inspection, the first round started with approximately half the field still in the garage. The LIS is routinely where teams encounter problems in inspection and has been the result of multiple teams being penalized this year.
When time expired at the end of the first round – which was 20 minutes – 12 teams had not cleared inspection and did not make a qualifying lap.
Starting at the rear Saturday night will be Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kasey Kahne, Clint Bowyer, Erik Jones, David Ragan, Landon Cassill, Reed Sorenson, Timmy Hill, Corey LaJoie, Jimmie Johnson, Carl Long, and Michael McDowell.
“Well, yeah, there’s a lot of time and we think we’ve given (them) plenty good inspection window to get the job done,” said Scott Miller, NASCAR’s vice president of competition. “Competitors are pushing the limits and they’re not making it. It’s disappointing, I’m sure, to a lot of the competitors that they weren’t able to qualify, but it’s disappointing to us that they aren’t presenting their cars in a way that they’d make it through inspection.
“Kind of the worst of both worlds, actually.”
The Go Bowling 400 is Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET on Fox Sports 1.
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