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RFK Racing still going strong with Keselowski on Texas Cup pole
Brad Keselowski and RFK Racing aren’t ready to give up the headlines.
A week after Chris Buescher took the organization to victory lane, Keselowski -- who missed the playoffs this year -- scored the pole for the NASCAR Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway with a fast lap of 188.990mph (28.573s).
It's his first pole in the series since 2019 and the second pole for RFK Racing this season after Buescher scored his first at Dover.
“It’s good; we want to win, but you have to start somewhere,” Keselowski said of his 18th career pole. “We had a good test last week at Homestead; learned a bunch. We really needed that. Now we were able to apply it here at Texas with our RFK No. 6 Ford. So, we’ll see. Five hundred miles on Sunday is a little different than qualifying but a great start for us, for sure.”
Joey Logano joins Keselowski on the front row and was the fastest playoff driver at 188.805mph.
William Byron qualified third at 188.805mph, Tyler Reddick fourth at 188.390mph and Michael McDowell completed the top five at 188.029mph.
Chase Elliott qualified sixth at 187.950mph, Austin Dillon seventh at 187.546mph, Denny Hamlin eighth at 186.987mph, Kyle Larson ninth at 186.233mph and Daniel Suarez 10th at 185.401mph.
Larson is the defending race winner.
All three races in the first round were won by drivers who are not championship-eligible.
Six playoff drivers will start outside the top 10.
Austin Cindric qualified 11th; Ross Chastain 12th; Ryan Blaney 14th; Alex Bowman 17th; Christopher Bell 22nd; and Chase Briscoe 30th.
Coming off his impressive win last weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway, Chris Buescher starts 13th at his home track.
Cody Ware did not make a qualifying lap after hitting the inside backstretch wall in practice. Ware drove his car to the garage with significant left side damage and will start last.
Thirty-six drivers will take the green flag at Texas.
UP NEXT: Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 500 at 3:30 p.m. ET Sunday.
Kelly Crandall
Kelly has been on the NASCAR beat full-time since 2013, and joined RACER as chief NASCAR writer in 2017. Her work has also appeared in NASCAR.com, the NASCAR Illustrated magazine, and NBC Sports. A corporate communications graduate from Central Penn College, Crandall is a two-time George Cunningham Writer of the Year recipient from the National Motorsports Press Association.
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