Logano beats Harvick and Almirola for Kansas pole

For Logano, the 191.646mph lap was his 20th career pole and his first of the 2018 season.

"They did a great job preparing this Ford," he said afterwards. "It unloaded with good speed ... did a good job maintaining the speed we needed throughout the run. This is a fun race to qualify because it definitely rewards bigger guts. The more you go for it the more the reward is, but the penalty is pretty big too.

"It feels nice to to be able to break through and start in a good spot for this final race of the cutoff."

Kevin Harvick qualified on the outside of the front row, just 0.069 seconds off the pole. Aric Almirola was third, Ryan Blaney fourth and Brad Keselowski fifth.

Round 1

Ty Dillon was the first driver out in the opening round but with the sun going down and temperatures cooling, he was quickly dropped down the order.

Trevor Bayne ended up on the bubble in the closing moments with A.J. Allmendinger the first driver out. Both Regan Smith and David Ragan made attempts, but failed to break their way into the Top 24.

Kyle Larson, who was in a backup car after crashing in practice, made a last-ditch effort to advance but ran out of time just before starting his flying lap. He qualified 27th, but will start from the rear due to going to a backup car.

Round 2

In the second round, the series' most recent winner Almirola led the way in a train of Ford drivers. But at the bottom of the Top 12, Denny Hamlin narrowly held on to the final transfer spot with Chase Elliott being the first driver on the outside, missing out by just 0.009 seconds.

"We need to go look at it and see," said Elliott, who is already locked into the next round of the playoffs. "Not very good, very disappointed with that. Thought our car drove pretty decent this afternoon so I was excited about tonight and yeah, just couldn't get going there."

In addition to Almirola and Hamlin, Harvick, Logano, Blaney, Erik Jones, Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr., Daniel Suarez, Keselowski, and Alex Bowman also advanced.

Cla	#	Driver	4506	Time	Gap	Mph
1	22	Joey Logano	Ford	28.177		191.646
2	4	Kevin Harvick	Ford	28.246	0.069	191.178
3	10	Aric Almirola	Ford	28.277	0.100	190.968
4	12	Ryan Blaney	Ford	28.282	0.105	190.934
5	2	Brad Keselowski	Ford	28.313	0.136	190.725
6	20	Erik Jones	Toyota	28.336	0.159	190.570
7	18	Kyle Busch	Toyota	28.340	0.163	190.543
8	19	Daniel Suarez	Toyota	28.354	0.177	190.449
9	11	Denny Hamlin	Toyota	28.417	0.240	190.027
10	88	Alex Bowman	Chevrolet	28.422	0.245	189.994
11	41	Kurt Busch	Ford	28.482	0.305	189.593
12	78	Martin Truex Jr.	Toyota	28.513	0.336	189.387
13	9	Chase Elliott	Chevrolet	28.417	0.240	190.027
14	14	Clint Bowyer	Ford	28.424	0.247	189.980
15	17	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	Ford	28.453	0.276	189.787
16	31	Ryan Newman	Chevrolet	28.459	0.282	189.747
17	24	William Byron	Chevrolet	28.461	0.284	189.733
18	21	Paul Menard	Ford	28.553	0.376	189.122
19	6	Trevor Bayne	Ford	28.557	0.380	189.095
20	1	Jamie McMurray	Chevrolet	28.599	0.422	188.818
21	37	Chris Buescher	Chevrolet	28.599	0.422	188.818
22	48	Jimmie Johnson	Chevrolet	28.628	0.451	188.627
23	3	Austin Dillon	Chevrolet	28.640	0.463	188.547
24	34	Michael McDowell	Ford	28.740	0.563	187.891
25	47	A.J. Allmendinger	Chevrolet	28.767	0.590	187.715
26	95	Regan Smith	Chevrolet	28.805	0.628	187.467
27	42	Kyle Larson	Chevrolet	28.852	0.675	187.162
28	38	David Ragan	Ford	28.856	0.679	187.136
29	43	Darrell Wallace Jr.	Chevrolet	28.946	0.769	186.554
30	13	Ty Dillon	Chevrolet	29.020	0.843	186.079
31	32	Matt DiBenedetto	Ford	29.093	0.916	185.612
32	15	Ross Chastain	Chevrolet	29.349	1.172	183.993
33	96	Jeffrey Earnhardt	Toyota	29.468	1.291	183.250
34	72	Corey Lajoie	Chevrolet	29.486	1.309	183.138
35	00	Landon Cassill	Chevrolet	29.625	1.448	182.278
36	23	J.J. Yeley	Toyota	29.804	1.627	181.184
37	99	Kyle Weatherman	Chevrolet	29.892	1.715	180.650
38	51	B.J. McLeod	Chevrolet	30.313	2.136	178.141
39	7	Reed Sorenson	Chevrolet	30.356	2.179	177.889
40	66	Timmy Hill	Toyota	30.387	2.210	177.708