Gibbs Bests Byron For Busch Light Pole At Pocono

Ty Gibbs with the Busch Light Pole Award at Pocono Raceway. (Ben Earp/NKP for Toyota Racing photo)

LONG POND, Pa. – As the final driver in Saturday’s NASCAR Cup Series qualifying session at Pocono Raceway, Ty Gibbs ultimately stole the Busch Light Pole Award from William Byron.

Gibbs turned a lap of 52.929 seconds (170.039 seconds) around the 2.5-mile ‘Tricky Triangle’ with his No. 54 Monster Energy Toyota Camry XSE to earn his second career Cup Series pole and second of the year.

The grandson of NASCAR Hall of Fame team owner Joe Gibbs was the only driver to post a sub-53 second lap in the final round of qualifying, as well as the only driver to average more than 170 mph.

Gibbs’ previous pole came at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway in May during Coca-Cola 600 weekend, and he’ll chase his first Cup Series win in his 72nd start Sunday afternoon.

“This is definitely satisfying, for sure,” said Gibbs. “We were really close last weekend and … just got beat at the last second, so it’s nice to put it all together in qualifying here. We were really fast and I appreciate all the effort from my Monster Energy (No.) 54 team. I wouldn’t be here without them and all my sponsors.”

“It was really, really fun out there and our car’s really good, so we’ll see what we can do and hopefully we can go win tomorrow.”

Byron, who was the fastest of the Group A drivers in the pole round, will join Gibbs on the front row. His time of 53.047 seconds (169.661 mph) with the No. 24 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for Hendrick Motorsports was, in fact, the second best overall among the top 10 qualifiers.

Martin Truex Jr. and seven-time Pocono winner Denny Hamlin will share row two, giving Joe Gibbs Racing three of the top four starters, with Stewart-Haas Racing’s Josh Berry rolling off fifth as both the fastest Ford driver and fastest rookie in the field.

Chicago winner Alex Bowman, whose round-one lap of 52.899 seconds was the best qualifying lap of the day, fell off on his second run and will start sixth, followed by Tyler Reddick, Ryan Blaney, rookie Zane Smith, and Joey Logano.

Chase Elliott (Group B) and Kyle Larson (Group A) were the fastest drivers in their respective groups who failed to advance to the second round. They’ll roll off 11th and 12th, respectively, Sunday afternoon.

Both Elliott and Larson missed the cutoff line to move on by less than three hundredths (.03) of a second.

Other notables starting deeper in the field include past Cup Series champions Brad Keselowski (14th) and Kyle Busch (24th), Noah Gragson (25th), Bubba Wallace (29th), and Todd Gilliland (33rd).

Broadcast coverage of Sunday’s Great American Getaway 400 is slated for 2:30 p.m. ET, live on USA, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.