Kevin Harvick won the pole for the Geico 500 at Talladega Superspeedway by running a time of 49.340 seconds. This is Harvick’s first pole of 2018, and the 22nd of his career. The session was stopped once for an incident. It consisted of two rounds: a full-field first round and a 12-car final round. The session was made up of single-car runs, since Talladega is a restrictor-plate track.
In the first round, Aric Almirola had a left rear tire go down during his run. He finished his lap far off the pace, then spun in turns one and two. Kevin Harvick had left pit road when Almirola had his issues, and ran over some debris. When the red flag came out for the incident, Harvick returned to pit road and made repairs. Ty Dillon, who was preparing to leave pit road and make his run, had some issues with a wiring harness inside the car, delaying his run as well. Both cars made it out on track and Kevin Harvick ended the round fastest, with a lap time of 49.291 seconds.
In the second and final round, Kevin Harvick was fastest once again, running a time of 49.340 seconds. Teammate Kurt Busch ran about a tenth slower in second.
The Geico 500 at Talladega Superspeedway will take place at 2 p.m. eastern time on Sunday afternoon.
The full lineup for the Geico 500 is listed below:
- Kevin Harvick
- Kurt Busch
- Martin Truex Jr.
- Denny Hamlin
- Chase Elliott
- Erik Jones
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- Clint Bowyer
- Joey Logano
- Brad Keselowski
- Alex Bowman
- David Ragan
- Paul Menard
- Daniel Suarez
- Darrell Wallace Jr.
- Jimmie Johnson
- William Byron
- Ryan Newman
- Kyle Busch
- Michael McDowell
- Trevor Bayne
- Kyle Larson
- Ryan Blaney
- Austin Dillon
- Chris Buescher
- Kasey Kahne
- Jamie McMurray
- AJ Allmendinger
- Ty Dillon
- Brendan Gaughan
- D.J. Kennington
- Timothy Peters
- Matt DiBenedetto
- Joey Gase
- Ross Chastain
- Cole Whitt
- Gray Gaulding
- Reed Sorenson
- Timmy Hill
- Aric Almirola
