{"id":140083,"date":"2025-09-13T03:14:16","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T03:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/140083\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T03:14:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T03:14:16","slug":"aj-allmendinger-leads-qualifying-at-bristol-for-1st-nascar-cup-pole-in-10-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/140083\/","title":{"rendered":"AJ Allmendinger leads qualifying at Bristol for 1st NASCAR Cup pole in 10 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BRISTOL, Tenn. (AP) \u2014 AJ Allmendinger upstaged the NASCAR Cup Series playoff drivers at Bristol Motor Speedway, capturing the pole for Saturday night\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/nascar-bristol-playoffs-larson-dillon-bc14e733a30d5d418205e0a891670389\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:first-round cutoff race on the 0.533-mile oval;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">first-round cutoff race on the 0.533-mile oval<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Kaulig Racing driver qualified first for the first time in 10 years, turning a 15.117-second lap (126.930 mph) on Friday in his No. 16 Chevrolet. With his fifth career pole in a Cup race and first since August 2015 at Watkins Glen, the 43-year-old Allmendinger became the oldest driver to win a pole at Bristol since Mark Martin, who was 50 in 2009.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo get a pole at Bristol, that&#8217;s pretty awesome,\u201d said Allmendinger, whose previous pole on an oval was at Kansas in April 2012. \u201cHopefully, we can do that for 500 laps. I know it\u2019s Friday night qualifying and doesn\u2019t pay any points or money, but it\u2019s small victories like this for our race team that\u2019s continually trying to grow. Days like today are enjoyable and give me confidence because I feel like I can still do it. It proves I can be here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ryan Blaney will start second after missing the pole by 0.003 seconds in his No. 12 Ford, but the Team Penske driver is in solid position to gain the 15 points needed to clinch a spot in the second round from his fourth front-row start this season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think our race car is really good over the long haul and just looking forward to (Saturday) night,\u201d Blaney said. \u201cOverall proud of the effort and to be that close to the pole, it\u2019s a good day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Teammate Austin Cindric qualified third, followed by Ty Gibbs and Kyle Larson, <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/nascar-bristol-playoffs-larson-dillon-bc14e733a30d5d418205e0a891670389\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:who is aiming for his third consecutive victory at Bristol;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">who is aiming for his third consecutive victory at Bristol<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Cindric is ranked 12th in the standings and 11 points above the cutline heading into the 500-lap race that will eliminate four of 16 drivers from the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s the first box checked, but nothing is guaranteed from here,\u201d Cindric said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019ve done our job for Friday. This sets us up well to try and continue to control our destiny for the end of the race.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Playoff drivers rounded out the rest of the top 10 in qualifying with Denny Hamlin, William Byron, Bubba Wallace, Josh Berry and Christopher Bell.<\/p>\n<p>The starting positions of the other playoff drivers were: Ross Chastain 13th, Tyler Reddick 14th, Alex Bowman 15th, Chase Elliott 16th, Joey Logano 22nd, Austin Dillon 23rd and Shane van Gisbergen 28th.<\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>AP auto racing: <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/auto-racing\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/auto-racing;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/auto-racing<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BRISTOL, Tenn. (AP) \u2014 AJ Allmendinger upstaged the NASCAR Cup Series playoff drivers at Bristol Motor Speedway, capturing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[17578,29779,49,48,75427,24807,634,8354,75426,82],"class_list":["post-140083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-allmendinger","tag-bristol-motor-speedway","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-career-pole","tag-mark-martin","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-cup-series","tag-racing-driver","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}