By AMANDA VINCENT
Rain at Richmond (Va.) Raceway on Saturday resulted in the cancellation of NASCAR Cup Series qualifying. Alex Bowman will start on the pole Sunday for the Toyota Owners 400 with the starting grid set by a formula that includes points and the finishing order and fastest laps from the most recent race.
VIDEO: Alex Bowman previews Richmond
“We’ve had some strong runs here,” Bowman said. “Honestly, last year in the spring, we had a really strong run. We had a tire issue on one run that probably made our day look worse than it was. Really, the day we won, we were really good on long runs. We struggled a little bit on the short run and had an uncontrolled tire to start stage three, so I had to start at the back and still drove to third before we got that late caution. We’ve kind of been hit and miss here a bit, but hopefully, I can apply some of that long-run knowledge that I have or what I’m looking for in the race car to help us tomorrow. I feel like you’re going to see a lot of long runs for the most part. With no downforce on the thing, it’s going to be a lot about taking care of your tires.”
Bowman will share the front row with fellow-Chevrolet driver Kyle Busch. Two more Chevy drivers, Bowman’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron and Ross Chastain, will starts in row two for a top-four sweep by the manufacturer.
The highest-starting Toyota and Ford drivers will start in row three with Toyota’s Tyler Reddick and Ford’s Austin Cindric in fifth and sixth.
