First Cup Series Pole For Zane Smith Comes At ‘Dega

Zane Smith celebrates with the Busch Light Pole Award at Talladega Superspeedway. (Max Corcoran/Race Face Digital photo)

TALLADEGA, Ala. – For the first time in his NASCAR Cup Series career, Zane Smith will have nothing but racetrack out his windshield when the green flag waves over the field.

The Huntington Beach, Calif., native sped to the Busch Light Pole Award at Talladega Superspeedway Saturday morning, topping both rounds of knockout qualifying and posting a lap of 52.565 seconds (182.174 mph) in the pole shootout.

It’s the first pole for Smith at the sport’s top level, coming in his 55th Cup Series start and just his 17th race with Front Row Motorsports, which he joined full time prior to this season but raced for sparingly in 2023.

“We obviously had a lot of speed in the TitleMax Ford. It wasn’t a whole lot of my doing, but just (coming) off of pit road making sure I hit my lights,” Smith explained. “I know my up to speed laps were pretty good, so that’s the main thing we focus on and just trying to be as smooth as possible. I’m just really proud of how our whole team has really been working together before our one week break, and I felt like that one week break was perfect for us to not really reset but digest and think about what we need to build on.

“We’re off to a great start for this next long stretch, so I’m proud of the speed and everything we’ve been doing. We just need to execute a little bit better, but I have a ton of speed this weekend,” he added. “It’s a long race tomorrow and a lot of things are gonna happen and go on, but obviously we’ve got the speed (to win).

“We’ll see how it goes.”

Bob Jenkins’ Front Row organization dominated superspeedway qualifying last season with former team driver Michael McDowell, earning five straight drafting poles, but had that streak snapped during Daytona 500 qualifying back in February.

This, however, marks the team’s third straight Talladega pole in the Cup Series.

Smith will be joined on the front row by Richard Childress Racing’s Kyle Busch, a multi-time superspeedway winner who last graced victory lane at Talladega in 2023.

Busch’s lap of 52.697 seconds (181.718 mph) in the No. 8 Chevrolet was more than a tenth of a second off Smith’s pole-winning lap, but still bodes well for Sunday as the two-time Cup Series champion chases his first victory in nearly two full years.

Team Penske’s Joey Logano starts third alongside RFK Racing’s Ryan Preece, as Fords took three of the top four grid spots in qualifying. Busch’s RCR teammate Austin Dillon timed in fifth fastest.

Chris Buescher, Austin Cindric, Josh Berry, three-time Talladega winner Ryan Blaney, and Ty Gibbs made up the balance of the 10 drivers who advanced through both rounds of knockout qualifying.

Gibbs’ teammate Christopher Bell was the first driver who failed to advance out of round one, missing the top-10 transfer by .013 seconds with a time of 52.927 seconds (180.928 mph) in the No. 20 Sport Clips Toyota.

Bell starts 11th alongside Haas Factory Team’s Cole Custer in row six.

Other notables lining up deeper in the field include two-time Talladega winner Denny Hamlin (13th), superspeedway ace Michael McDowell (14th), Daytona 500 winner William Byron (16th), Bubba Wallace (20th), Kyle Larson (25th), and defending spring Talladega winner Tyler Reddick (26th).

With just 39 drivers entered, no one failed to qualify for the 10th race of the Cup Series season.

Broadcast coverage of Sunday’s Jack Link’s 500 is slated for 3 p.m. ET, live on FOX, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.