Kevin Harvick wins the pole for Texas playoff race

Harvick’s average lap speed of 189.707 mph led the way in Saturday’s qualifying and gave him the pole for Sunday’s AAA 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.

Harvick has won the last two playoff races at Texas, although his victory last year was declared “encumbered” and he couldn’t use it to advance to the championship race.

The pole is Harvick’s sixth of the season – the most of any driver – and 31st of his career. His only previous pole at Texas came in the 2017 spring Texas race.

“The best part is our car drove really well in race trim yesterday and still had a lot of speed and put it in qualifying trim today and still made speed,” Harvick said. “So, hopefully, we can keep our track position.

“As you saw the last race (here), you want to be up front and you want to be on the right cycle of rotation of pit strategy. Having that first pit stall is definitely an advantage here. It will be a track position game and hopefully we can play it right and keep ourselves up front.”

Asked how much is a guessing game to have the set-up right at the end of the race, Harvick said: “When you look back at the first race, it was definitely a tire strategy game and you wanted to have the best track position at the end of the race.

“So, it’s difficult to know what that needs to be. Our car was really good in the 20 to 25 laps we ran in a row a couple times yesterday and hopefully it will feel good tomorrow as the track widens out and we get into that PJ1 (traction compound).”

Erik Jones (188.890 mph) ended up second and Denny Hamlin third (188.712 mph). Kurt Busch was fourth and Alex Bowman rounded out the top-five.

Rounding out the top-10 starters are Aric Almirola, Daniel Suarez, Brad Keselowski, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Matt DiBenedetto.

The cars of Stenhouse, Austin Dillon and Jimmie Johnson all failed pre-qualifying inspection twice. They each will lose 15 minutes of practice next week at ISM Raceway near Phoenix. 

Stenhouse and Dillon had their respective car chief ejected; Johnson had a team engineer ejected for the remainder of the weekend.

la	#	Driver		Manufacturer	Time	Gap	Mph
1	4	Kevin Harvick		Ford	28.465		189.707
2	20	Erik Jones		Toyota	28.588	00.123	188.890
3	11	Denny Hamlin		Toyota	28.615	00.150	188.712
4	1	Kurt Busch		Chevrolet	28.657	00.192	188.436
5	88	Alex Bowman		Chevrolet	28.669	00.204	188.357
6	10	Aric Almirola		Ford	28.675	00.210	188.317
7	41	Daniel Suarez		Ford	28.723	00.258	188.003
8	2	Brad Keselowski		Ford	28.727	00.262	187.976
9	17	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.		Ford	28.734	00.269	187.931
10	95	Matt DiBenedetto		Toyota	28.740	00.275	187.891
11	22	Joey Logano		Ford	28.755	00.290	187.793
12	18	Kyle Busch		Toyota	28.764	00.299	187.735
13	42	Kyle Larson		Chevrolet	28.782	00.317	187.617
14	9	Chase Elliott		Chevrolet	28.817	00.352	187.389
15	12	Ryan Blaney		Ford	28.841	00.376	187.233
16	8	Daniel Hemric		Chevrolet	28.846	00.381	187.201
17	19	Martin Truex Jr.		Toyota	28.863	00.398	187.091
18	13	Ty Dillon		Chevrolet	28.901	00.436	186.845
19	24	William Byron		Chevrolet	28.901	00.436	186.845
20	37	Chris Buescher		Chevrolet	28.914	00.449	186.761
21	3	Austin Dillon		Chevrolet	28.915	00.450	186.754
22	43	Darrell Wallace Jr.		Chevrolet	28.931	00.466	186.651
23	48	Jimmie Johnson		Chevrolet	28.936	00.471	186.619
24	14	Clint Bowyer		Ford	28.938	00.473	186.606
25	6	Ryan Newman		Ford	28.951	00.486	186.522
26	38	David Ragan		Ford	28.983	00.518	186.316
27	34	Michael McDowell		Ford	29.004	00.539	186.181
28	47	Ryan Preece		Chevrolet	29.018	00.553	186.091
29	36	John Hunter Nemechek		Ford	29.097	00.632	185.586
30	96	Parker Kligerman		Toyota	29.123	00.658	185.420
31	21	Paul Menard		Ford	29.135	00.670	185.344
32	00	Landon Cassill		Chevrolet	29.194	00.729	184.970
33	32	Corey Lajoie		Ford	29.311	00.846	184.231
34	53	J.J. Yeley		Ford	29.534	01.069	182.840
35	27	Ross Chastain		Chevrolet	29.633	01.168	182.229
36	52	Garrett Smithley		Ford	29.830	01.365	181.026
37	77	Quin Houff		Chevrolet	29.831	01.366	181.020
38	15	Joe Nemechek		Chevrolet	30.025	01.560	179.850
39	51	Josh Bilicki		Chevrolet	30.278	01.813	178.347
40	66	Timmy Hill		Toyota	30.647	02.182	176.200