Haley continues success in LA, wins pole for Busch Light Clash at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
By Kyle Foster, photo courtesy of Eric Thompson (shamboozled.com)
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
Los Angeles-At most races, the pole is already essential. But at NASCAR’s season-opening exhibition race, getting the pole award is crucial.
One reason is that it determines where you start in your heat race. So starting up front is a must, which makes the pole even more valuable.
On top of that, you can’t win the Busch Light Clash in qualifying but man, you can certainly lose it with a bad run in Busch Light pole qualifying.
Winning the pole award and getting the pole for the first heat race was Justin Haley. The second-year NASCAR Cup Series driver logged a lap of 13.413.
“That’s obviously key,” Haley said after capturing the top spot. “We fired off last year and we were pretty good and obviously had some trouble in the race. And I felt like we were pretty good current practice there. But I just feel like I wasn’t getting the full potential out of the race car. And then obviously, in qualifying, our lap was just dominant. So yeah, I feel pretty confident about where we are.”
One would think after the racing surface was torn down and repaved that it could handle a bit differently since it’s a new surface. According to Haley, this isn’t the case.
“I think we were probably going so fast anyway that it probably doesn’t look fast,” he said. “But I mean, it’s pretty similar. I would not say that anything’s different, noticeably different.”
It should come as no surprise that Haley is fast. Last year in this event, he was one of the best cars on the track. He won his heat race and started third in the main event in what was Kaulig Racing’s first race as a charted team in the Cup Series. He was also the third-fastest qualifier overall last year.
Chevrolet being fast was a theme of the qualifying session. After all, 7 of the top 10 qualifiers were from the bowtie brigade. AJ Allmendinger was 8th fastest and will start 8th, which means he’ll line up second in the last heat race.
In his first race at Richard Childress Racing, Kyle Busch qualified second. The veteran who is back with Chevy after 15 years will lead the second heat race to green.
The other pole sitters for heat races are Christopher Bell and William Byron.
However, qualifying didn’t go off without an incident. Ryan Blaney lost control coming off of turn 4 on his green flag lap before driving in the wrong direction to the back straight away. Ultimately his time wouldn’t be allowed meaning he’ll start 9th in his heat race.
The top 5 finishers in each heat race will take up the top 20 spots in the main event. Each heat race is 25 laps. From there on, there will be two 50-lap Last Chance Qualifiers where the top 3 advances to the race. Finally, the highest remaining finisher in 2022 driver points will get a provisional, meaning 9 teams won’t race in the main event.
Racing action begins at 2 PM with the heat races, and the 150-lap Busch Light Clash will start at 5 PM. All of the action will be on Fox.
Practice
The only practice session on Saturday was very eventful. It’s not too surprising given the fact that it was the first on-track action of the new season and everyone wanted to work out the kinks.
Going fastest overall was Martin Truex Jr who logged a time of 13.361. Going second fastest was Bubba Wallace at 13.371. Toyota had 4 of the top 8 in times for the practice session.
One of those Toyotas that was fast was Ty Gibbs. In the session, the NASCAR Cup Series rookie had his car go up in flames. Because of this, Gibbs wasn’t allowed to make a qualifying run due to the unapproved adjustments required to fix the car.
Also in the 90-minute session, Chase Briscoe and AJ Allmendinger had a skirmish at the end of the first round of practice. Briscoe bumped the Kaulig Racing veteran who back full-time in the Cup Series in 2023, before Allmendinger put the Stewart-Haas Racing driver in the wall in turn 3.
