By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
Dover Motor Speedway’s first All-Star Race weekend kicked off with a slam — and a spin or three — in Saturday’s unique qualifying session.
Denny Hamlin, who spun while exiting the pit lane and entering the race track, overcame the slide to score the pole for Sunday’s $1 million event. He did so by getting up to speed in time for his fast lap, which was followed by a four-tire pit stop and a fast out-lap.
The run totaled 1m 49.298 seconds, only 0.144 quicker than second-place Brad Keselowski.
“It was quite eventful for sure,” Hamlin said. “I was trying to get an extra rep there on the bottom. I saw so many guys having issues leaving pit road, so I tried to get an extra rep there and I just spun out. I didn’t think I was being that aggressive.
“At that point, just tried to minimize the damage. I did do some underbody damage to it, flat-spotted the tires. That wasn’t ideal, but then I just committed to run the lap as hard as I could, and it was still good enough.”
The pole is his second in the All-Star Race, doing so previously in 2015.
“I think it really challenges you,” he said. “I’ve never been close when it comes to qualifying in this type of format towards the front. It’s in my DNA, I’m a little conservative on all aspects.”
Hamlin wasn’t alone in the spin department, as drivers like Connor Zilisch, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Chris Buescher also went for slides in various points of their respective qualifying runs.
Additionally, John Hunter Nemechek, Chase Elliott and Daniel Suarez suffered loose wheels with the latter suffering a blow to the Turn 1 wall after the wheel knocked loose.
“I’m never usually P1 in any metric of coming to pit road or leaving pit road or rolling,” he said. “I’m usually pretty decent, so this is a challenging format for me, and it has been for all of my career.
“It is a risk-reward. I certainly think that it’s certainly one that challenges the driver, especially having to come in and do it cold like this, overnight, and no reps – just going. It definitely is a team effort that, you know, puts the spotlight on everybody that’s involved.”
Speaking of putting the spotlight on everybody, the pit stop portion of the session awarded Zane Smith’s Front Row Motorsports crew with the $100,000 Mechanix Wear Pit Crew Challenge. Though Smith qualified 25th on overall lap time, the No. 38 crew celebrated the win just the same.
Erik Jones will start Sunday’s All-Star Race from third position, contending in the race’s two 75-lap stages that set the field for the final 200-lap main. Seven drivers will advance from the two stages into the last stage.
Ross Chastain was fourth followed by William Byron fifth. Christopher Bell, Bubba Wallace, Joey Logano, Ty Gibbs and Austin Cindric rounded out the top 10.