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March 08, 2025
By Holly Cain
NASCAR Wire Service
AVONDALE, Ariz. – Daytona 500 winner William Byron climbed out of his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet on Phoenix Raceway pit road with a huge smile after claiming his first pole position in nearly a year — the last car to turn a qualifying lap.
The 27-year-old North Carolinian conceded he wasn’t expecting his chart-topping lap of 133.680 mph but is ready to seize the strong start for Sunday’s Shriners Children’s 500 (3:30 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“I did not hit my marks, I was sideways and carried a ton of entry speed, missed the middle of the corner, and coming off the dogleg I was so loose,’’ Byron said of his fast lap on the one-mile Phoenix oval, the 14th pole of his career. “I was just going to try to commit to the exits and see how much I could get out, even though I missed the center [of the turn].
“Just a fast car,’’ said Byron, who leads the NASCAR Cup Series championship and has two top-two finishes in the season’s first three races. “Thanks to my whole team. They’ve been bringing fast cars, and we’ve been doing a really good job of executing. So definitely want to go out there and have a great day tomorrow.’’
Team Penske’s Joey Logano will start alongside Byron, marking his third front-row start in four races this year. The three-time and reigning series champion turned a lap of 133.195 mph in his No. 22 Ford Mustang in Saturday’s single-round NASCAR Cup Series qualifying session.
“I don’t like William Byron anymore,’’ Logano said with a laugh. “Man, that stinks. I just got through telling [crew chief] Paul [Wolfe] that it would really suck if the last car beat us.
“That was going to be Penske’s 700th pole across all motorsports, so we’ll have to go try and do that next week. But overall, proud of the effort.’’
Spire Motorsports’ Carson Hocevar will start his No. 77 Chevrolet third, leading an impressive weekend for the Spire team. For the first time ever, all three of its cars will start among the top eight on the grid. Michael McDowell (No. 71) and Justin Haley (No. 7) will start seventh and eighth, respectively.
Wood Brothers Racing’s Josh Berry was fourth quickest in the No. 21 Ford, followed by Legacy Motor Club’s Erik Jones in the No. 43 Toyota.
Defending Phoenix spring race winner Christopher Bell, who brings a two-race winning streak into Phoenix, was 11th quickest Saturday afternoon.
Katherine Legge, making her NASCAR Cup Series debut this weekend, qualified last among the 37 cars. However, she improved her practice speed in the No. 78 Live Fast Motorsports Chevrolet by more than 2 mph in qualifying — a strong sign of progress for the sports car and open-wheel driver.
Logano, who won the last NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix in November, is the last driver to win a race from the pole at the desert one-miler, claiming that win in fall 2022. Hendrick Motorsports drivers Kyle Larson (2021) and Chase Elliott (2020) are the only other active drivers with a Phoenix victory from the pole.
Hocevar was not only quick in qualifying but also fastest in Saturday afternoon’s practice using Goodyear’s “option” tires. His Spire Motorsports Chevrolet teammate McDowell was second-fastest, with 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick (Toyota), Team Penske’s Austin Cindric (Ford), and Roush Fenway Keselowski’s Chris Buescher (Ford) rounding out the top five.
Teams tested the option tire in the 45-minute practice session to evaluate its impact in race trim. Race conditions are expected to differ, with temperatures forecasted to be at least 10 degrees warmer. Every team will have two sets of the option tire and six of the Goodyear primary sets.
“I don’t know, but it’s definitely a much faster tire and pretty strong as well,’’ Larson said of running practice laps on the option tire. “It’s going to be interesting.’’
NOTES:
*Legge will make NASCAR history this weekend as only the eighth woman to start a NASCAR Cup Series race in the sport’s modern era (post-1972) and the first since Danica Patrick competed in the 2018 Daytona 500.
Legge, 44, is driving the No. 78 Live Fast Motorsports Chevrolet owned by longtime NASCAR competitor B.J. McLeod and his wife, Jessica – finding out she was a “go” for the Phoenix weekend only 10 days ago.
The longtime IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Series competitor has four IMSA class wins and is a four-time Indianapolis 500 starter. She has made five career NASCAR Xfinity Series starts, primarily on road courses, with a best-ever NASCAR result of 14th at Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, in 2018.
Legge spoke with the media Friday at Phoenix – before her first laps in the car – explaining that she would have probably preferred to make her NASCAR Cup Series debut on a road course but is prepared to give the Phoenix one-mile oval a go. She acknowledges she’s gotten some solid – and fast – prep work from the most accomplished Chevrolet teams in the NASCAR garage, from sim time at Richard Childress Racing to pit stop practice at Hendrick Motorsports.
“I’ve done a handful of stock car races in my career, so I feel like I’m either going to sink or swim, but everybody has given me the best possible opportunity to go out there and do a good job,” said Legge, who was 37th fastest in Saturday practice and qualifying.
“I think expectations aside, if I can tell you what my goals and hopes are,’’ she added. “That’s basically to finish all of the laps. I want to do a good job and minimize mistakes because everybody makes mistakes, but I really want to minimize them. I want to stay out of trouble and show respect and prove that I belong. I think if I do those things, I think I will get the opportunity to do more.”
Kaulig Racing’s A.J. Allmendinger, a world-renowned and versatile racer who has competed in sports cars with Legge over the years, said this weekend for her is all about managing expectations.
“It’s definitely different than something she’s experienced, but there’s no pressure on her,’’ Allmendinger said. “We can overthink and overcomplicate a lot of things inside our own heads. And now there’s so much data and video, you can stress yourself out, which we all tend to do.
“But the biggest thing is she knows how to drive a race car, just a different race car, so just go enjoy the experience and run all the laps. It’s like what Mark Martin, Jeff Gordon, and Tony Stewart used to tell me, ‘Don’t be in the way, be predictable, and run all the laps.’’’
*NASCAR issued a major penalty this week to Team Penske’s Austin Cindric for intentional contact with Kaulig Racing’s Ty Dillon early in last week’s road course race at Circuit of the Americas. The penalty was the loss of 50 driver points and a $50,000 fine, dropping Cindric 24 positions in the points standings, from 11th to 35th entering Sunday’s Phoenix race.
“Not up to me to decide what penalties are or aren’t, it’s up to NASCAR,’’ Cindric said Saturday. “So definitely have to accept and work hard to make up for it.
“I got forced into the runoff, forced off-track,’’ Cindric said, explaining the situation with the incident with Dillon. “Just handled myself poorly in the face of adversity and got penalized for it.
“I think at the end of the day, the data points NASCAR has and the experience they have in making those calls, it’s not really up for me to decide [what is a fair penalty]. As competitors, you absorb from each case and learn from it. In my case, learn from my personal experience.”
NASCAR also penalized Kyle Larson’s No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team for a lost wheel during the COTA race. Two pit crew members are suspended for two races, beginning this week at Phoenix.
*On the flip side, NASCAR’s Appeals Panel ruled this week to overturn a massive penalty issued to Daytona 500 pole-winner Chase Briscoe. The original discipline was a 100-point, 10-playoff point deduction from Briscoe and a $100,000 fine, 100-point, four-race crew chief (James Small) suspension for the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 19 team. NASCAR ruled the parts violation it found was caused in the manufacturing of the piece, not by team manipulation.
By reinstating the points, Briscoe is now tied with Carson Hocevar – both ranked 14th in the standings.
Defending Phoenix spring race winner, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell, is attempting to make history this weekend by claiming a third consecutive win this season. It would be the 29th time a driver has done that in the modern era (post-1972), although no driver has ever won three straight with this NextGen car.
*Most recently among current full-time drivers, Joey Logano and Kyle Busch earned three straight trophies in 2015. Brad Keselowski and Busch won three races in 2018. Larson is the last to accomplish the feat – doing it twice in his 2021 championship season. Eleven times, the driver that has won three straight has gone on to win the title that same year.
Bell smiled and said the consecutive wins would be nice, but it’s not top of mind.
“That would be something I’d probably think about afterward, but right now it just feels like a normal week, a week where we have a great opportunity because this is a great track for me, and I’m excited about the opportunity, not thinking about three in a row,’’ Bell said, acknowledging he’s currently on a good streak of success with wins at Atlanta and Circuit of the Americas in the last two weeks.
“Certainly, the confidence is high. And it’s just very refreshing to know we’ve improved our weaknesses. It’s tough because the last part of the schedule, the two speedways, and then the road course, literally none of that translates into what we’ll be doing here in Phoenix. That being said, this is a strength for us, and we know we should be competitive if we do our jobs right.’’
