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Keselowski steals win on late restart, while Harvick blows it on late penalty

HAMPTON, Ga. — Brad Keselowski passed Kyle Larson six laps to go to win in Atlanta, but it’s nothing compared to Kevin Harvick blowing another dominant performance for the fourth straight year at Atlanta.

Harvick was the dominant car from the start of the race to the final caution of the race, leading 292 of 325 laps. There was a potential obstacle in his way when Keselowski beat him off pit road under the fourth caution, but Keselowski’s crew didn’t get all the lug nuts tightened on his car and he surrendered the lead to come back down to get them tightened.

The critical moment came with 17 to go when Austin Dillon’s car lost power and he missed the entrance to pit road. The No. 3 came to a rest on the apron in Turn 2 and brought out the sixth caution with 16 to go. After the leaders made their stops, the call came in from Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Race Director David Hoots.

“4, too fast on pit road.”

Larson assumed the race lead for the final restart with 11 to go. Keselowski reeled him in, passed him on the backstretch with six to go and took the checkered flag.

When asked if he thought he had a chance to catch Harvick with all he had to overcome, Keselowski said you just “never know. That’s how these races are.”

“We had a lot of adversity today there’s not doubt about that. These races aren’t easy,” he added. “They’re 500 miles and a lot can happen and when you think you’ve got it they slip away. I know how it goes. This one kind of fell in our lap at the end and my team put it all together when it counted. They gave me a great Autotrader Ford Fusion and we were able to get by Kyle there at the end. I knew that he wasn’t going to be easy to pass. His car was great and I was able to make the right moves to get by him.”

It’s his 22nd career victory in 271 Cup Series starts.

Larson led seven laps on his way to a runner-up finish.

“I raced around Brad a lot throughout the day, Larson said. “Any time I was in front of him on short runs, he’s drive around me up top. And so, I knew I was going to have to take his line away on that start there for a couple of laps and try it. I just didn’t have enough grip or not as much as I’d hoped. He did a good job being a lane lower than me and getting to my inside. So, it was disappointing not to get the win, but I’m happy about our second place run at a 1.5-mile where I struggle at. I can’t thank everybody at the shop enough for building great race cars, and Hendrick engines for supplying us with some great engines, I had a blast today. The Target Chevy was good. I ran the bottom a lot, which is not typically something I do. So, it was a lot of fun to learn how to kind of use both feet to get around the bottom and to do a good job with that.”

Matt Kenseth rallied past two speeding penalties to round out the podium.

The Hendrick Motorsports teammates of Kasey Kahne and Chase Elliott rounded out the top-five.

Harvick came home to a ninth-place finish.

“Ya, this place, for whatever reason, I just feel like I’m snake bitten,” Harvick said. “It’s my own doing today. I really didn’t think I was even close on pit lane. It gets to bouncing around, I thought I was being conservative, apparently I wasn’t. I want to thank everyone on our Jimmy Johns Ford for everything they did this weekend. I was just pushing it too hard.

“I just made a mistake that I preach all the time that you don’t need to make and beat yourself and then you go out and make it yourself instead of following all the things you preach. That part is hard for me to swallow. The good part about it is our Ford has been really fast. We didn’t know what we were going to have when we got here and we had a great weekend the whole time. Man, I just, one way or another I have figured out how to lose races here at Atlanta after being so dominant. We will pick ‘em up and start again next week.”

The only two times the caution flew in the first 170 laps of the race was at the conclusion of the stages.

In the final stage, the cautions started occurring more frequently.

The third of the race flew with 86 to go for debris in Turn 4, the fourth flew with 63 to go for Gray Gaulding blowing an engine in Turn 4, the fifth flew with 47 to go for Clint Bowyer blowing a left-front tire and slamming the wall in Turn 1 and the final caution flew with 16 to go for Dillon stalling in Turn 2.

Thirteen speeding penalties were issued to 11 different drivers in today’s race, a result of increased timing lines.

The race lasted three hours, 33 minutes and eight seconds at an average speed of 140.898 mph. There were nine lead changes among five different drivers and six cautions for 32 laps.

Harvick leaves with a four-point lead over teammate Kurt Busch.

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March 5, 2017
The White Zone: The XFINITY Series is a joke

HAMPTON, Ga. — The NASCAR XFINITY Series and The Simpsons have something in common: They’re both husks of their former glory and only occasionally produce something serviceable to good, but nothing spectacular.

Once upon a time, the XFINITY Series was a NASCAR touring series that put on decent racing, ran separate from the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series many weekends and had a good mix of battle-tested veterans and rookies seeking to make a name for themselves. Only occasionally did it have the Cup interloper when the series was a companion event to the Cup race.

Minus the number of standalone events, this description fits mostly well on the current NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.

The series I see now is nothing more than a contradiction that’s dominated by Cup drivers and runs an almost identical schedule to the Cup Series. The quality of racing ranges from mediocre at best to abysmal most weekends. During standalone weekends, the quality is hit or miss.

A textbook example of how bad the racing is now is this past weekend’s XFINITY race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Cup drivers led from start to finish. Brad Keselowski won the first stage, Kevin Harvick won the second stage and Kyle Busch won the race. There was also a two-car wreck at the start with Ty Dillon and Blake Koch.

That was the race in only 40 words.

Oh a few other things happened as well, but those are the events that mattered in it. It doesn’t matter in the slightest that Elliott Sadler left with a three-point lead over William Byron. Those will just reset prior to the start of the Chase, I’m mean “playoffs,” in September.

Let’s not forget the apologists for Cup drivers in XFINITY “hand waving” the lousy driving by saying the rookies gain “valuable experience” learning from the veteran Cup drivers. Take this line from Michael Waltrip in yesterday’s broadcast of the Rinnai 250 on FS1.

“How lucky are we in 2017 these kids mixing it up with these veterans?!”

I don’t know what race Waltrip was watching, but it wasn’t the same XFINITY race that was led start to finish by all Cup drivers. They were in a different time zone all day long.

Oh and to top off yesterday, Busch’s car failed post-race inspection. But he keeps the win, so any penalty that results means absolutely nothing. The owners titles? That means nothing to anybody other than the owners. And even then, it’s small fry compared to the drivers title. It’s a discussion for another article, but NASCAR has incentivized teams with drivers not running for a drivers title in the XFINITY Series, and the Camping World Truck Series by extension, to run illegal race cars/trucks in order to win the race. You keep the win, pay a fine and lose a crew chief for a few weeks.

Expect to see more of this same scenario, minus a car failing post-race inspection, week after week this season.

And this isn’t an isolated race. This has been the trend for years. Last season, XFINITY drivers won only 12 of the 33 races. Only five different XFINITY drivers won and only three of them were full-time XFINITY drivers. Nine full-time Cup drivers — Chase Elliott, Kyle Busch, Austin Dillon, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Denny Hamlin, Kyle Larson, Aric Almirola, Joey Logano and Michael McDowell — won the other 21.

Compare this to the 1982 XFINITY Series season, the inaugural season of the then NASCAR Budweiser Late Model Sportsman Series. Seven primarily Cup drivers — Dale Earnhardt, Geoffrey Bodine, Morgan Shepherd, Joe Ruttman and Darrell Waltrip — won just nine of the 29 races. Granted, only five drivers ran all 29 races, but these were drivers who primarily ran XFINITY in their career.

The only saving grace this season might be that NASCAR has put a cap on the number of races a Cup driver can run in the lower divisions, with the caveat of not applying to drivers with less than five years of full-time Cup experience.

And just so I don’t come off as “too cynical,” I’ll offer some solutions to bring some respect back to the XFINITY Series.

FIRST: NASCAR must acknowledge that the XFINITY Series in its current state is garbage.

Nothing will change until the NASCAR executives in Daytona Beach accept the reality that the “No. 2 auto racing series in the United States” rings hollow with the NASCAR nation when the quality of its racing is so atrocious.

1.5: Acknowledge that the XFINITY Series is nothing more than Cup-Lite.

Matt Weaver of Autoweek sums up the argument in his piece A broken NASCAR Xfinity Series: Can it be fixed?.

“Many will respond, ‘Just enjoy the racing,’ but that’s a tall task given the current schedule and on-track product. More than ever before, Xfinity is simply a carbon copy of its Sprint Cup older brother.

“Like a clone, it has no soul, no personality and no purpose other than to add another event to a track’s Sprint Cup race ticket.

“All told, the Xfinity Series just isn’t a lot of fun right now.

“At the height of the sport’s popularity, the old Busch Series was an exciting alternative to the Cup Series. It spent months at a time apart from the premier division, visiting tracks like Indianapolis Raceway Park, Fairgrounds Speedway Nashville, Gateway and Myrtle Beach.”

Weaver is right on the money. The series is just weekend filler. In fact, these are some of the same arguments lobbed towards The Simpsons. But whereas The Simpsons will still produce an episode that shows a spark of their former greatness, there’s hardly any of that with the XFINITY Series.

It’s hard to “enjoy the racing” when the race for the lead is between Cup drivers who won’t fight for the title in the XFINITY Series and the current arrangement of the schedule favors the downforce-heavy 1.5 mile tracks of the Cup Series over the short track-centric schedule that once defined the XFINITY Series.

This leads me to my next point.

SECOND: DIVERSIFY THE SCHEDULE!!!

While there’s hardly any spark of greatness with the modern XFINITY Series, I did see some of it this past season during a five-race stretch that lasted from Iowa in July to Road America in August. During that stretch, the XFINITY Series visited the short track of Iowa Speedway, the road course of Watkins Glen International, the road course of the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, the short track of Bristol Motor Speedway and the road course of Road America. Only two of those events, Watkins Glen and Bristol, were companion events to Cup.

I watched that Bristol XFINITY race from the press box in the middle of Turns 3 and 4 and never found myself once disinterested in what was going on, even though a Cup driver won the race.

And that leads me to my final point.

THIRD: Cup drivers have to go.

To those who say we need Cup drivers to bring in more fans, I’ll take that argument seriously when NASCAR requires tracks to publish attendance figures again. Why should I, or anyone else, care if Cup drivers are necessary for drawing crowds when this sport isn’t transparent about their own attendance figures, except when its a “sellout?” You can just look at the stands yourself on any raceday and see the crowds are abysmal. The Cup drivers aren’t drawing a crowd that legitimizes the argument.

The only argument that has any merit is Cup drivers bring in sponsorship. But it’s kind of a self-defeating argument because it shows just how little the series can sustain on its own merits. It also begs the question, why does NASCAR continue using the tagline “Names are made here” when we’re told tracks need Cup drivers to draw a crowd?

This is a classic case of having your cake and eating it too. NASCAR, you can’t continue having Cup drivers in XFINITY whilst promoting as the series where names are made, at least if you want people to take it seriously.

Alas, it’s probably too little too late for the XFINITY Series.

We beg and plead with people to pack the standalone races at tracks such as Iowa and Kentucky to the nosebleeds to show NASCAR that people want more standalone races, but it doesn’t work.

At this point, the XFINITY Series is damned to being a shell of its former self that only once in a while puts on a decent race.

Again, maybe the cap NASCAR put on Cup participation this season will prove me wrong, but I’m not holding my breath.

March 5, 2017
Christopher Bell Dominates Truck Race at Atlanta

HAMPTON, Ga. — Christopher Bell put on clinic in the Truck race, winning all three stages, and held off Matt Crafton on a two-lap run to the finish to take the checkered flag.

The driver of the No. 4 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota led all but 31 laps from the drop of the green flag. He won the first stage and won the second stage, but lost the lead to boss Kyle Busch on pit road under the fifth caution of the race.

He regained the lead with 18 laps to go, fought off Crafton on the final restart and scored the victory in the Active Pest Control 200.

“This place is so much fun, just the slipping and sliding” Crafton said. “That was some of the greatest racing I’ve seen in a long time. Everyone was all over that racetrack and that’s what it’s all about.”

It’s was Bell’s third career victory in 32 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series starts.

“This was definitely a race I had circled ever since we left here last February,” Bell said. “To come back and be as dominant as we were was really cool for me. It was just a dream weekend ever since we unloaded.”

Johnny Sauter, Ben Rhodes and Chase Elliott rounded out the top-five. Elliott’s truck failed post-race inspection (too low and missing lug nut).

“It was a very eventful day,” Sauter said. “This has been a tough racetrack for me. I seem to always have trouble. Tonight, we had a miss and I thought, ‘Here we go again.’ But it was a great race.”

Alex Bowman, Austin Dillon, Grant Enfinger, Timothy Peters and Ross Chastain rounded out the top-10.

Noah Gragson and Brett Moffitt brought out the first caution for a two-truck wreck on the first lap and Jordan Anderson tagged the wall with his left-rear exiting Turn 4. The truck went through the frontstretch grass when the splitter dug into the ground and was lifted off the ground.

Busch’s right-front tire went flat and his truck hit the wall with 18 to go. He finished 26th.

The race lasted 1 hour, 50 minutes and 44 seconds at an average speed of 108.477 mph. There were six lead changes among four different drivers and eight cautions for 38 laps.

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March 4, 2017
Kyle Busch Wins Cup Dominated XFINITY Race at Atlanta

HAMPTON, Ga. — A Cup driver dominated and won the first stage, a Cup driver dominated and won the second stage and a Cup driver dominated and won the XFINITY Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway dominated by Cup drivers.

Right off the bat, Kyle Busch led the first eight laps before Brad Keselowski passed under him on the backstretch to take the lead on the ninth lap. Keselowski maintained a one to two second advantage over Busch the remaining 31 laps to win the first stage.

He led most of the second stage, but lost the lead to Kevin Harvick on lap 62 and Harvick won the stage.

Harvick led most of the final stage that was interrupted by a caution halfway through, but Kyle Larson took command of the race. He lost the lead on pit road to Busch pitting under caution. Keselowski tried to challenge Busch in the closing laps by taking advantage of lapped traffic, but it proved too little too late and Busch took the checkered flag.

It’s Busch’s 89th career victory in 329 XFINITY Series starts.

Larson came home third, Harvick finished fourth and Elliott Sadler rounded out the top-five.

Darrell Wallace Jr., William Byron, Austin Dillon

The only wreck in the race involved Ty Dillon and Blake Koch on the second lap. Entering Turn 1, Dillon cut his left-rear tire and spun out. Koch dove onto the apron to avoid him, but wound up t-boned him.

Denny Hamlin spun out on the frontstretch after suffering a flat left-rear tire, which was caused by running over a lug nut after making an unscheduled stop for a flat right-front tire.

Justin Allgaier and Brennan Poole made unscheduled stops during the first stage for flat tires.

The race lasted one hour, 57 minutes and 16 seconds at an average speed of 128.435 mph. There were six lead changes among four different drivers and five cautions for 26 laps.

Elliott Sadler leaves Atlanta with a three-point lead.

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March 4, 2017
Elliott Fastest at Atlanta in Final Cup Practice

HAMPTON, Ga. — Chase Elliott topped the chart in the final Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

The driver of the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet was the fastest with a time of 29.487 and a speed of 188.015 mph. Brad Keselowski was second in his No. 2 Team Penske Ford with a time of 29.552 and a speed of 187.602 mph while Kurt Busch was third in his No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford with a time of 29.556 and a speed of 187.576 mph.

AJ Allmendinger was fourth in his No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet with a time of 29.565 and a speed of 187.519 mph and Denny Hamlin rounded out the top-five in his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota with a time of 29.567 and a speed of 187.506 mph.

Ryan Newman, who posted the sixth-fastest single lap, also posted the fastest 10 consecutive lap average at a speed of 181.429 mph.

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March 4, 2017
Bell Wins Truck Pole at Atlanta

HAMPTON, Ga. — Christopher Bell will lead the field to the green flag after take pole position at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

The driver of the No. 4 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota scored the pole for the Active Pest Control 200 after posting a time of 30.643 and a speed of 180.922 mph. Kyle Busch will start second in his No. 51 KBM Toyota after posting a time of 30.782 and a speed of 180.105 mph. Austin Cindric will start third in his No. 19 Brad Keselowski Racing Ford after posting a time of 30.817 and a speed of 179.901 mph. Chase Briscoe will start fourth in his No. 29 BKR Ford after posting a time of 30.851 and a speed of 179.702 mph. Alex Bowman rounded out the top-five in his No. 24 GMS Racing Chevrolet after posting a time of 30.876 and a speed of 179.557 mph.

Johnny Sauter, Matt Crafton, Timothy Peters, Chase Elliott and Noah Gragson rounded out the top-10.

John Hunter Nemechek and Kaz Grala rounded out the 12 drivers that made the final round of qualifying.

JJ Yeley, Norm Benning and Jennifer Jo Cobb failed to make the race.

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March 4, 2017
Kyle Busch Captures Pole for XFINITY Race at Atlanta

HAMPTON, Ga. — Kyle Busch will lead the field to the green flag after taking pole position at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

The driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota won the Coors Light Pole Award after posting a time of 30.153 and a speed of 183.862 mph. William Byron will start second in his No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet after posting a time of 30.167 and a speed of 183.777 mph and Brad Keselowski will start third in his No. 22 Team Penske Ford after posting a time of 30.186 and a speed of 183.661 mph.

Kyle Larson will start fourth in his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet after posting a time of 30.241 and a speed of 183.237 mph as Denny Hamlin rounded out the top-five in his No. 20 JGR Toyota after posting a time of 30.278 and a speed of 183.103 mph.

Daniel Hemric, Matt Tifft, Cole Custer, Brendan Gaughan and Ryan Reed round out the top-10 starters.

Brennan Poole and Kevin Harvick round out the top-10 starters.

Carl Long, Mike Harmon and Morgan Shepherd failed to make the race.

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March 4, 2017
Seven-Time’s Success at Atlanta

HAMPTON, Ga. — Atlanta Motor Speedway has been dominated by a number of drivers over the years. There was Dale Earnhardt with nine wins, Bobby Labonte with six and Jeff Gordon with five. Now Jimmie Johnson owns the deed to the Hampton, Georgia facility.

Although Kevin Harvick dominated the stat sheet in the last three visits, it’s Johnson who has stood in victory lane when all was said and done in two of those three years (the third belongs to Kasey Kahne in 2014). In 2015, Johnson pulled away on the restart with 13 to go to win, despite Harvick leading 116 of the 325 laps to Johnson’s 92. The following year, Harvick again led more laps than anybody (131), but a slow pit stop, compared to Johnson, saw Harvick lose the race to the driver of the No. 48 car.

“I can say the last two races we have won here we didn’t really get our stuff situated until late in the going and been able to come out on top,” Johnson said. “Just because you might have a slow Friday or a slow start to the race I don’t think you can count anybody out. We have a lot of chances to work on the car and can make stuff happen here, which is really neat.”

Atlanta was the location of the win that came when Hendrick Motorsports was at their lowest in 2004. A week after a plane crash in Stuart, Virginia that killed eight members of the Hendrick Motorsports organization/members of Rick Hendrick’s family, Johnson took the lead on the final restart and beat Mark Martin, who led 227 of 325 laps, by nearly three-tenths of a second (.293). It was also his third-consecutive win, with wins at Charlotte and Martinsville the preceding two weeks. This made him the first to do so since Gordon in 1998-99 (Rockingham, Atlanta (1998) and the Daytona 500 (1999)).

In 2007, Johnson swept both Atlanta races, the last time this was accomplished prior to Atlanta scaling back to one race in 2011. The fall race was the second of four-straight wins, winning the previous week at Martinsville and winning the following weeks at Texas and Phoenix on the way to his second Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series title.

He was involved in a memorable battle for the win, despite coming up on the losing end, in 2011, with then teammate Gordon. For the final 10 laps, the two drivers battled side-by-side or in close proximity on worn out tires. Johnson made one final drive for the win, only to back off the gas exiting Turn 4 to avoid wrecking out and settled for runner-up.

He admitted that he had trouble remembering what happened that day in 2011. But said he more vividly recalled his duel with Gordon at Martinsville in 2007 because “I came out on top.”

Needless to say, Atlanta has been a great track for Johnson over his career, as well as Hendrick Motorsports.

“When I look back over my career and when I think of Hendrick related race cars and success from (Jerry) Nadeau running well here, Jeff has obviously always been amazing here. (Kasey) Kahne, it has been a good track for (Dale Earnhardt) Junior over the years. It is a good track for all of us.”

March 4, 2017
Atlanta Motor Speedway – Did You Know?

This weekend all three NASCAR series travel to Atlanta Motor Speedway culminating with Sunday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500. But did you know that this race will mark a milestone in the series as the 2,500th Cup race?

The first Cup Series race was run at Charlotte Motor Speedway on June 19, 1949, and was won by Jim Roper in his No. 34 Lincoln in what was then called the “Strictly Stock” series. Glenn Dunaway was originally declared the winner but was disqualified for illegal modifications to the rear springs on his car, giving the victory to Roper.

This race will be special for another reason as well. Following this weekend’s events, Atlanta Motor Speedway will be repaved for the first time in 20 years. The asphalt track is the second- oldest racing surface on the NASCAR circuit.

There are currently 23 racetracks on NASCAR’s Cup Series schedule but did you know that the series has competed on 156 different tracks? There have been 234 Coors Light Pole winners and 186 different drivers who have taken the checkered flag among 2,536 competitors who have made starts in the series.

The first Cup Series race at Atlanta was on July 31, 1960, and was won by Fireball Roberts from the pole position. There have been 43 different winners. Dale Earnhardt leads all drivers with nine wins while Jimmie Johnson leads all active drivers with five. Did you know that Kyle Busch is the youngest Atlanta winner with a victory on March 9, 2008, at 22 years, 10 months and seven days? The oldest driver to win at Atlanta was Morgan Shepherd on March 20, 1993, at 51 years, five months and eight days.

Starting position is always important but it may surprise you to know that only 14 of the 109 (12.8 percent) Cup races have been won from the pole at Atlanta. The most recent driver to do so was Kasey Kahne in 2006. The fifth starting position, however, has produced more winners with 15, than any other position at Atlanta. Jeff Gordon was the most recent to win from fifth place, in 2011. But starting position isn’t everything. Bobby Labonte won in the fall of 2001 after starting 39th.

Jimmie Johnson leads the pack heading to Atlanta and is looking for a three-peat. He won this race in 2015 and 2016 and has the best driver rating, 107.1. But Kurt Busch, fresh off his Daytona 500 triumph and the 2016 pole winner, should also be a contender. Did you know that Busch leads all active drivers in laps led at the track with 749? He also has three Atlanta wins and the fifth-best driver rating (95.4).

With a new format this season that encourages aggressive racing, anything is possible. Did you know that on March 11, 2001, we saw the closest margin of victory since the advent of electronic scoring at Atlanta Motor Speedway when Kevin Harvick won over Jeff Gordon by a MOV of 0.006 seconds? Could we see a repeat of this competitiveness? Tune into FOX at 2:30 p.m. ET Sunday to watch the action in the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 as the 2017 season continues.

Follow @angiecampbell_ on Twitter for the latest NASCAR news and feature stories.

March 3, 2017
Harvick Takes Pole Position in Atlanta

HAMPTON, Ga. — Kevin Harvick will lead the field to the green flag in Sunday’s Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

The driver of the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford scored the pole after posting a time of 29.118 and a speed of 190.398 mph.

It adds on to the string of three straight years of dominance in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series that Harvick has maintained at Atlanta. However, he’s been unable to translate that dominance into a second career victory at the track that played host to his first career victory in 2001. And he doesn’t know if a pole start is the missing link to getting the victory.

“We have been in this position before and this really goes back to 2009 when we really started running well here. We have led a ton of laps here but just haven’t won a race,” Harvick said. “It is a little frustrating because we have won a whole bunch of races in the other two divisions with the same performance on Sunday. It just seems something happens at the end of the race. Hopefully, this is the year we can close it out.”

Ryan Newman qualified second in his No. 31 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet after posting a time of 29.199 and a speed of 189.870 mph. Kyle Busch qualified third in his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota after posting a time of 29.202 and a speed of 189.850 mph. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. qualified fourth in his No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford after posting a time of 29.356 and a speed of 188.854 mph. Brad Keselowski rounded out the top-five in his No. 2 Team Penske Ford after posting a time of 29.367 and a speed of 188.783 mph.

Joey Logano, Jamie McMurray, Kyle Larson, Martin Truex Jr. and Denny Hamlin rounded out the top-10.

Chase Elliott and Dale Earnhardt Jr. rounded out the 12 drivers that made the final round of qualifying.

Prior to the start of qualifying, a large number of cars were still in the process of going through inspection after failing a station.

NASCAR executive official Elton Sawyer addressed the media on the matter.

At the conclusion of the first round, only five cars failed to post a timed lap.

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March 3, 2017