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Photo Michael Jaworecki/Myracenews
- Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin ties track record for career poles held by Ken Schrader and Bill Elliott during Saturday’s NASCAR Cup Series qualifying session.
- Cup Series points leader William Byron of Hendrick Motorsports to start 31st after hitting wall during qualifying lap.
LONG POND, Pa. (June 21, 2025) – Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin earned a share of the track record for career pole positions when he secured his fifth during Saturday’s NASCAR Cup Series qualifying for The Great American Getaway 400 presented by VISITPA.COM at Pocono Raceway.
Hamlin, driving the No. 11 Progressive Toyota, posted a lap of 172.599 mph (52.144 seconds) around the 2.5-mile tri-oval to move into a tie with Ken Schrader and Bill Elliott for career poles at “The Tricky Triangle.” His previous Pocono poles were a season sweep in 2006, 2014 and 2022.
Hamlin will lead the 37-car field to the green flag Sunday for the sold-out Great American Getaway 400 presented by VISITPA.COM (2 p.m. ET, TV: Amazon Prime, Radio: MRN, SiriusXM). Click HERE for the starting lineup.
It was Hamlin’s first pole of the season and 45th of his career. However, after finishing 27th in the final practice his expectations during qualifying were not envisioning a pole.
“If you would have asked me an hour ago, I probably wasn’t going to be very confident,” Hamlin said. “I thought with how off the balance was in practice I just wanted to get a top-10 qualifying effort. If I can do that and make some adjustments overnight, then I’m back in the game. If I had a poor qualifying effort, that was just going to make the balance worse and that’s just going to be how it was going to be not matter how good your car is.
“I thought the task to get another win was going to need to be starting in the top 15. But now that we are first, we need to make sure we execute well and max that balance in race trim and we should be fine.”
RFK Racing driver Chris Buescher’s lap of 172.325 mph (52.227 secs.) landed him the other front-row position. It was his ninth top-10 start of the season and third top-five start at Pocono.
Carson Hocevar of Spire Motorsports will start third with a lap of 171.825 mph (52.379) for his fourth top-four start of the season. Legacy Motor Club’s John Hunter Nemechek, with a lap of 171.789 (52.390 secs.), will start a season-best fourth. Cole Custer also earned a season-best starting position when the Haas Factory Team driver qualified fifth with a lap of 171.638 mph (52.436 secs.).
Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron, who sits atop the Cup Series points standings, will start 31st after getting loose out of Turn 2 and hitting the inside wall during his qualifying attempt.
For more news on the NASCAR race weekend, please visit www.poconoraceway.com.
