Harvick wins Kansas pole, SHR sweeps first two rows

Harvick, still looking for his first win of the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season, won the pole for Saturday night’s Digital Ally 400 and will have his three Stewart-Haas Racing teammates lined up behind him.

Harvick’s average lap speed of 179.217 mph topped teammates Aric Almirola (178.725 mph), Clint Bowyer (178.324 mph) and Daniel Suarez (178.247 mph).

Chase Elliott ended up fifth, Martin Truex Jr. sixth, William Byron seventh, Kyle Larson eighth, Brad Keselowski ninth and Alex Bowman 10th.

The pole is the third of the season for Harvick and 28th of his career. It’s also his fourth at Kansas and second in the last three races.

“The mile-and-half race tracks have been quite a handful for us as we’ve gone through the beginning of the season,” said Harvick, who won this race a year ago. “From new cars to different engines and different headers and body builds and new sim files and aero maps – you name it, this is the next step.

“They’ve done a great job. Everybody knew we were a little bit behind but we saw some light at Texas. Everybody’s done a great job today. The car is fast and it drives great in traffic and hopefully when it gets dark tomorrow night, we’ll have another good night in Kansas.”

Harvick was also fastest on long runs in both of Friday’s practices, another good indication that he should be strong in the race as well.

“We decided to run two long runs, one at the end of the first session and the second at the end of the second session. We didn’t get in the middle of the big pack,” he said.

“I think when everybody is in the middle of the big pack, the car is going to push and slide on the restarts and then it will file out and you’ll have to go by them three or four at a time in front of you and then one at a time.

“I’m happy with how my car drove. It has a ton of speed and hopefully we can capitalize on it.”

Cla	#	Driver		Manufacturer	Time	Gap	Mph
1	4	Kevin Harvick		Ford	30.131		179.217
2	10	Aric Almirola		Ford	30.214	0.083	178.725
3	14	Clint Bowyer		Ford	30.282	0.151	178.324
4	41	Daniel Suarez		Ford	30.295	0.164	178.247
5	9	Chase Elliott		Chevrolet	30.345	0.214	177.954
6	19	Martin Truex Jr.		Toyota	30.447	0.316	177.357
7	24	William Byron		Chevrolet	30.483	0.352	177.148
8	42	Kyle Larson		Chevrolet	30.530	0.399	176.875
9	2	Brad Keselowski		Ford	30.540	0.409	176.817
10	88	Alex Bowman		Chevrolet	30.542	0.411	176.806
11	20	Erik Jones		Toyota	30.577	0.446	176.603
12	43	Darrell Wallace Jr.		Chevrolet	30.579	0.448	176.592
13	18	Kyle Busch		Toyota	30.586	0.455	176.551
14	1	Kurt Busch		Chevrolet	30.586	0.455	176.551
15	13	Ty Dillon		Chevrolet	30.605	0.474	176.442
16	21	Paul Menard		Ford	30.644	0.513	176.217
17	11	Denny Hamlin		Toyota	30.651	0.520	176.177
18	48	Jimmie Johnson		Chevrolet	30.673	0.542	176.051
19	12	Ryan Blaney		Ford	30.676	0.545	176.033
20	22	Joey Logano		Ford	30.729	0.598	175.730
21	17	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.		Ford	30.732	0.601	175.713
22	3	Austin Dillon		Chevrolet	30.751	0.620	175.604
23	34	Michael McDowell		Ford	30.818	0.687	175.222
24	32	Corey Lajoie		Ford	30.820	0.689	175.211
25	00	Landon Cassill		Chevrolet	30.823	0.692	175.194
26	8	Daniel Hemric		Chevrolet	30.825	0.694	175.182
27	37	Chris Buescher		Chevrolet	30.889	0.758	174.820
28	6	Ryan Newman		Ford	30.893	0.762	174.797
29	95	Matt DiBenedetto		Toyota	30.917	0.786	174.661
30	31	Tyler Reddick		Chevrolet	30.932	0.801	174.576
31	47	Ryan Preece		Chevrolet	30.938	0.807	174.543
32	52	Bayley Currey		Ford	30.956	0.825	174.441
33	38	David Ragan		Ford	30.992	0.861	174.239
34	77	Quin Houff		Chevrolet	31.123	0.992	173.505
35	36	Matt Tifft		Ford	31.192	1.061	173.121
36	15	Ross Chastain		Chevrolet	31.242	1.111	172.844
37	51	Cody Ware		Chevrolet	31.590	1.459	170.940
38	46	Joey Gase		Toyota	32.027	1.896	168.608
39	66	Timmy Hill		Toyota	34.485	4.354	156.590
40	27	Reed Sorenson		Chevrolet