Briscoe Bags Nashville Cup Pole With Track Record Lap

Chase Briscoe poses with the Busch Pole Award Saturday at Nashville Superspeedway. (Rusty Jarrett/Nigel Kinrade Photography)

LEBANON, Tenn. – It’s a new NASCAR Cup Series track record at Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway from Joe Gibbs Racing’s Indiana racer Chase Briscoe!

The top provisional spot was handed off several times in a thrilling session of Busch Light Pole Qualifying at Nashville on Saturday, but it was Briscoe taking the top spot for Sunday’s Cracker Barrel 400 with a new track record on the 1.333-mile concrete oval.

The Mitchell, Ind. driver took William Byron, Denny Hamlin, and others off the top spot in the end with a blistering 29.125-second lap (164.395 mph). The new track record, the first on an oval for NASCAR’s seventh generation Cup car, beats Aric Almirola’s previous pole speed record set before the inaugural Cup Series race at the track in 2021.

It’s Briscoe’s third pole in 2025, and his second consecutive having started on point at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway for the Coca-Cola 600. It’s also his fifth career pole in 158 Cup Series starts.

Briscoe knew the lap was fast, he just didn’t realize it was that fast.

“I was surprised. I felt like it was a good lap,” Briscoe said, “I definitely felt like I left a little bit on the table, but I just felt like it was a smooth clean lap. I felt like for sure it was going to be a top five lap, so I was surprised honestly with how fast it was.”

The 30-year-old driver will make his fifth start at Nashville on Sunday, and with a previous best start of 16th, he knows all too well how critical track position can be here.

“It’s nice to start on pole two weeks in a row,” Briscoe continued. “Hopefully we can do a little bit better tomorrow than we did last week, but certainly this track is very track position dependent, so to be able to start on the pole is going to be a huge advantage for us, and hopefully we can hold that advantage.”

Competing with Briscoe on the front row will be Denny Hamlin, posting a 29.174-second lap in the No. 11 Progressive Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing. Hamlin also harped on track position for Sunday night.

“I think it’s certainly going to be a track position kind of race,” Hamlin said. “With minimal (tire) fall off … even in practice, I had to back up from guys that I was catching (because of the dirty air), so it’s going to be critical to stay as close to the front as possible. A great job by Joe Gibbs Racing to sweep the front row and give us a good pit selection … but I would have loved to have (pit stall) number one and Chase just ruined that!

“I think we can race from that spot … even if we did get beat by our teammate in that one.”

With Hamlin expecting the birth of his third child with his fiancée Jordan Fish, Ryan Truex is on standby for the veteran driver.

In third will be two-time Daytona 500 winner William Byron, alongside 23XI’s Tyler Reddick in fourth. Reddick was a strong contender in the 2023 edition of this race, where he led 33 laps on the Middle Tennessee concrete oval.

Coca-Cola 600 winner Ross Chastain rounds out the top five starters, who is one of the few Cup drivers participating in the NASCAR Xfinity Series race with JR Motorsports.

2012 Cup Series Champion and RFK Racing owner Brad Keselowski will wheel his No. 6 Solomon Plumbing Ford Mustang Dark Horse from sixth.

Christopher Bell, Michael McDowell, Joey Logano, and Chris Buescher fill out the top 10 spots for Sunday’s Cracker Barrel 400.

Other notable starters include NASCAR’s most popular driver Chase Elliott (11th), New Zealand’s Shane Van Gisbergen with his first Cup start at Nashville (23rd).

Spire Motorsports’ Carson Hocevar, who is coming off his most impressive display of Cup car driving to date at the Coke 600 (26th), and 23XI’s fourth car making a second-in-a-row appearance at Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway with Friday night’s runner-up Corey Heim (33rd).

Broadcast coverage of the Cracker Barrel 400 is scheduled for Sunday, May 31 at 7:00 p.m. ET, live on Amazon Prime Video, the Performance Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.