Weather Shortens Xfinity Qualifying, Blaney on Texas Pole

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor

Ryan Blaney and Team Penske have been quick all weekend with their NASCAR Xfinity Series entry at Texas Motor Speedway and they continued to show off that speed on Saturday during qualifying for the My Bariatric Solutions 300.

Blaney laid down the fastest time in the first round with a lap of 28.439 seconds, 189.880 mph, followed by Ryan Truex in second. After the first round was delayed a few times due to the weather, NASCAR elected to make qualifying official after just the one round, handing Blaney the pole.

“We just didn’t really know what it was going to do,” said Blaney. “It’s been so cold today. I’ve never been at a race track where it’s swung this much with the temperature in two days. It was kind of misting pretty hard and we didn’t know if the track was wet or not, so we waited as long as we could, really, toward the end of that first round.

“We were able to get a good lap in our Fitzgerald Glider Kits Mustang. Cool to have them on board. Nice to start up front. It’s going to be an interesting race. Track is going to be really fast, so hopefully we can keep it up front.”

Brandon Jones, Ryan Reed, Jamie McMurray, Tyler Reddick, Ty Dillon, Justin Allgaier, JJ Yeley, and Cole Custer would round out the top-10 fastest qualifiers.

There was a bit of drama going on back in the garage area during that first round of qualifying as inspections issues plagued more than a handful of cars and they weren’t able to make it out on track by the time the clock expired.

Among those experiencing issues in inspection was Elliott Sadler, Daniel Hemric, Matt Tifft, Kaz Grala, and Kevin Harvick. All of whom will have to start at the back of the pack as a result of not passing inspection in time.