Kyle Busch, looking to kickstart his great but recently sluggish career, took a big first step Wednesday night by winning the pole for the Daytona 500.
Busch, driving the No. 8 Chevy for Richard Childress Racing, toured the 2.5-mile trioval in 49.006 seconds, two-tenths faster than Chase Briscoe in the No. 19 Toyota of Joe Gibbs Racing. Those two have locked up the front row for the Great American Race.
Wednesday’s subplot revolved around the eight non-chartered “open” teams aiming for four available spots in Sunday’s race. Two of those four spots go to Corey Heim and Justin Allgaier, who were fastest among the eight during the one-lap qualifying runs.
Preorder our Dale Earnhardt book here
Heim is driving a fourth Toyota entry for 23XI Racing
Allgaier, driving for Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s JR Motorsports, has made the Daytona 500 for the second straight year without a guaranteed spot. His lap was less than a whisker faster than fellow open driver Corey LaJoie — four-thousandths of a second.
Here are the full results:
NASCAR qualifying results: Starting lineups for Daytona Duels
1. Kyle Busch, No. 8
2. Chase Briscoe, No. 19
3. Ryan Preece, No. 60
4. Denny Hamlin, No. 11
5. Corey Heim, No. 67
6. Alex Bowman, No. 48
7. Kyle Larson, No. 5
8. Chris Buescher, No. 17
9. Chase Elliott, No. 9
10. Joey Logano, No. 22
11. Ty Gibbs, No. 54
12. Austin Dillon, No. 3
13. Christopher Bell, No. 20
14. Justin Allgaier, No. 40
15. Corey LaJoie, No. 99
16. John Hunter Nemechek, No. 42
17. Austin Cindric, No. 2
18. Brad Keselowski, No. 6
19. Zane Smith, No. 38
20. Ryan Blaney, No. 12
21. Michael McDowell, No. 71
22. William Byron, No. 24
23. Connor Zilisch, No. 88
24. Cole Custer, No. 41
25. Erik Jones, No. 43
26. Cody Ware, No. 51
27. Josh Berry, No. 21
28. Jimmie Johnson, No. 84
29. Carson Hocevar, No. 77
30. Bubba Wallace, No. 23
31. Riley Herbst, No. 35
32. AJ Allmendinger, No. 16
33. Todd Gilliland, No. 34
34. Ross Chastain, No. 1
35. Anthony Alfredo, No. 62
36. Ty Dillon, No. 10
37. Shane van Gisbergen, No. 97
38. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., No. 47
39. Daniel Suarez, No. 7
40. Tyler Reddick, No. 45
41. Chandler Smith, No. 36
42. BJ McLeod, No. 78
43. Casey Mears, No. 66
44. JJ Yeley, No. 44
45. Noah Gragson, No. 4
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Daytona 500 qualifying results set starting lineup for 2026 Duels
Reporting by Ken Willis and Chris Vinel, Daytona Beach News-Journal / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
