Christopher Bell went into Saturday hoping for a wet weather race on Sunday at Martinsville Speedway and then he went out and won the pole on a dry track.
This is the first pole of a season that has produced three wins in six starts at the 14 of his career. He set fast time with a 96.034 mph lap and 19.718 lap around the historic Virginia half-mile.
The top-five includes all Joe Gibbs Racing and Hendrick Motorsports teams with Chase Elliott, Alex Bowman and Kyle Larson serving as the meat of a Bell and Denny Hamlin bread sandwich.
What does a pole mean here?
“Well, I’ve never done it, so I can’t give you a great answer on that,” Bell said with a laugh. “I will say – it is just a war when you get into those teens and twenties. Martinsville is a place where the runs are extremely long, and maybe not by the clock, because the laps go by quick, but you look at – this is the short race, and we still have 80 laps before they pay stage points, and you are not going to pit in that time frame, so at like Homestead, or Vegas – it is an 80 lap stage, but you are pitting so you are only running 40 laps on tires, where here, that first stage will be 80 laps that we have to go on tires, so it is an extremely long run, so what that does – it really rewards the ability to save your tires and not push your car as hard – really the whole run, but especially at the beginning of the run, where if you qualify in the teens and twenties – which I have done a lot in my Martinsville career – you are just in a dog fight for every position because you run the threat of going a lap down at the end of a run, and everyone is just scratching and clawing to out brake everybody, and you penalize the tires at the beginning of the run.
“I think those first five to 10 qualifiers, are just content and know that they are going to go 80 laps on tires, and they are like we are going to sort it out, get in lines – I think it pays dividends at the end of those runs.”
Casey Mears, making his first start since the 2019 Daytona 500, will start 37th for MBM Motorsports. Burt Myers, making his points paying Cup Series debut after racing in the Bowman Gray Clash, will start last in the 38-car field.
The complete starting lineup can be found below.
Christopher Bell: 19.718
Chase Elliott: 19.735
Alex Bowman: 19.738
Kyle Larson: 19.755
Denny Hamlin: 19.758
Chris Buescher: 19.758
Joey Logano: 19.762
Bubba Wallace: 19.766
Tyler Reddick: 19.780
William Byron: 19.782
Chase Briscoe: 19.805
Kyle Busch: 19.811
Ty Gibbs: 19.817
Josh Berry: 19.819
Michael McDowell: 19.833
John Hunter Nemechek: 19.844
Ross Chastain: 19.850
Austin Dillon: 19.858
Zane Smith: 19.866
Austin Cindric: 19.871
Ryan Preece: 19.884
Cole Custer: 19.890
A.J. Allmendinger: 19.893
Noah Gragson: 19.896
Todd Gilliland: 19.904
Daniel Suárez: 19.919
Brad Keselowski: 19.945
Ty Dillon: 19.976
Carson Hocevar: 19.981
Justin Haley: 19.991
Erik Jones: 19.994
Ryan Blaney: 20.019
Shane van Gisbergen: 20.090
Ricky Stenhouse Jr.: 20.109
Riley Herbst: 20.118
Cody Ware: 20.268
Casey Mears: 20.583
Burt Myers: 20.613
