Ryan Preece delivered an outstanding lap at Richmond Raceway, securing the pole position for the second-to-last race of the regular NASCAR season. Although Preece is currently 34 points shy of the playoff cutoff, starting from the front gives him a strong chance to earn valuable stage points during Saturday’s race. He credited crew chief Derrick Finley and the RFK Racing team for the excellent setup of his Ford Mustang, noting this marks his second pole in his Cup Series career.
Preece clocked a lap time of 22.244 seconds, narrowly outpacing Tyler Reddick by 0.087 seconds. This is RFK Racing’s first pole position in a Cup race since September 2022 at Texas Motor Speedway. AJ Allmendinger impressed by recovering from an earlier pre-qualification issue to finish third in qualifying. Other top qualifiers include Denny Hamlin in fourth and Chase Elliott in fifth, with Brad Keselowski, Bubba Wallace, Christopher Bell, Alex Bowman, and Michael McDowell rounding out the top ten.
Preece’s teammate, Chris Buescher, clinched the 16th playoff spot with a 12th place qualifying result. The qualifying session saw times improve as it progressed, with Preece going 29th out of the 36 drivers. Several drivers, including Justin Haley, Eric Jones, and Shane Van Gisbergen, pushed their cars to the limit, resulting in contact with the wall at turn 4. Joey Logano faced issues due to a right-front tire failure, resulting in heavy contact with the wall, forcing him to abandon his qualifying lap despite Team Penske’s repair efforts.
Austin Dillon, last year’s Richmond winner in a controversial finish, qualified 11th, while his teammate Kyle Busch, who led much of the race at Richmond in previous events, struggled with a 28th place starting spot. Another surprise was Kyle Larson of Hendrick Motorsports, starting deep in the field in 30th place.
Fan Take: Ryan Preece’s pole position at Richmond Raceway is a thrilling development, especially as he battles to secure a playoff spot. This shake-up at the front could inject much-needed excitement and unpredictability into the NASCAR playoffs race, highlighting the competitiveness of RFK Racing and reminding fans that every race can bring fresh contenders to the spotlight.
