CONCORD, N.C. — Kurt Busch will start on the pole for the inaugural Bank of America Roval 400 on Sunday (2 p.m. ET on NBC).
Busch earned his fourth pole of the year with a top speed of 106.868 mph around the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course.
Busch topped AJ Allmendinger, who qualified second with a speed of 106.811 mph.
The top five was completed by Alex Bowman, Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson.
“I’m just going to have fun with it,” Busch told NBCSN. “I’m glad our setup worked. Now we’ve got to go to work on race trim. We’ve got to make sure we protect our tires for the long run.”
Busch’s four poles are his second most (six, 2006). It’s his third pole on a road course.
Allmendinger earned his best qualifying spot since Sonoma in 2016. It comes the week that JTG Daugherty Racing announced he would not be back in 2019 and that Ryan Preece will replace him.
“Hell, I’ve got nothing to lose, I don’t have a job so might as well go steal a win,” Allmendinger told NBCSN.
Eight of the 16 playoff drivers did not advance to the final round: Martin Truex Jr. (13th), Kyle Busch (14th), Joey Logano (15th), Kevin Harvick (19th), Aric Almirola (20th), Austin Dillon (24th), Brad Keselowski (25th) and Denny Hamlin (27th).
Hamlin wrecked two minutes into the first round when he got loose in the backstretch chicane, clipped the tire barrier and then backed into the outside wall. Despite making a run after his team made repairs, Hamlin will go to a backup car.
Shortly after Hamlin’s accident, Bubba Wallace spun exiting Turn 8 back onto the oval. It was his fourth spin of the day.
Kyle Busch, who qualified 14th, had two laps in the final minutes of the first round disallowed due to missing portions of the frontstretch chicane.
