By David Morgan, Associate Editor
HAMPTON, Ga. – It has been a common sight on superspeedways as of late to see the drivers and teams sporting the Blue Oval logo of the Ford Mustang Dark Horse to be fast on qualifying day, and that was true once more during time trials for Saturday night’s running of the Quaker State 400 at EchoPark Speedway.
The track that formerly carried the Atlanta Motor Speedway name will see Fords occupy the top-eight spots on the starting grid, with Joey Logano and Josh Berry holding down the fort on the front row. It also marks the sixth straight race at Atlanta in which a Ford has started from the pole.
The two drivers from Team Penske and Wood Brothers Racing, respectively, both laid down identical laps of 30.979 seconds, 178.960 mph to find themselves in a tie, with the nod going to Logano due to his higher placement in the owner’s standings.
Logano comes into Saturday night as the defending winner of the summer race at this track.
“It definitely helps at the start, for sure. Being up front and controlling this race is the name of the game,” Logano said of the advantage of being at the front of the field when the green flag drops. “If you can get up there and solidify the top positions, I feel like you can stay there.
“The thing is there’s a lot of what-ifs that play out in this race, a lot of cautions that maybe timed in a different way where it can jumble up the field. It’s hard to say you’re gonna be leading every lap of this thing. It’s kind of a hard thing to try to accomplish. The good thing is we controlled what we could today.
“I’m super proud of Team Penske, Roush Yates, Ford, obviously, to keep our Mustangs up there. It really shows the ability to repeat from car to car. It’s really hard to do. When you see we tied with the 21 and I think all the other cars were all within a couple hundredths of a second, and you think of all the parts and pieces on a race car and how you can put them together, to make them all end up the same like that is pretty impressive.
“I’m super proud of what Team Penske has been able to do there. It shows the discipline and quality control is definitely there, so I’m proud to see that. That part is cool to show as an example today, but tomorrow is a whole new day.”
Logano’s Team Penske brethren, Ryan Blaney and Austin Cindric, will roll off from the second row, followed by the RFK Racing duo of Ryan Preece and Brad Keselowski in fifth and sixth place on the starting grid.
Blaney added that having fast cars in the Penske stable makes coming to tracks like Atlanta more enjoyable.
“Fast cars make it easier. We’ve done a great job of bringing fast cars to these places,” said Blaney.
“I think it’s just something, I don’t know, I just kind of prefer, I don’t prefer, but I enjoy speedway racing. Like I try to understand this is what it is and even though this is a different kind of speedway racing than the other two, Talladega and Daytona. It’s just something that I’ve always been comfortable with and trying to figure out where’s the best spot I need to be at these points.
“But I think a lot of it contributes to, we bring really fast cars. That definitely helps.”
Cole Custer and Zane Smith would round out the top-eight for the Fords, with Alex Bowman as the top Chevrolet in ninth, and Chase Briscoe as the top Toyota in ninth and 10th place.
Christopher Bell, who won at Atlanta back in February, will have his work cut out for him starting back in 28th place.
Ahead of qualifying, Bell expected as much with his team focusing on race pace over single lap speed.
“I can promise you that we’re not gonna qualify up front,” Bell said. “I was feeling good when we had the lightning strike. I was hoping that we would not qualify. But I think we’ll definitely be mid pack, at best. And that’s normal for us. So, we’ll work our way forward.”
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