Bowman’s average lap speed of 191,261 km / h took the lead in Wednesday night’s qualifying session when he easily beat his Hendrick teammate William Byron to make his record fourth consecutive front row of the season.
Byron finished second (190,219 mph), which also locked him up in Sunday’s starting lineup at Daytona International Speedway.
It is also the seventh consecutive Daytona 500 to start a team powered by a Hendrick engine on the pole.
‘I mean, it doesn’ t have much to do with me, does it? That’s proof of the guys on this team and everyone back in the shop at Hendrick Motorsports, ‘Bowman said. ‘They work so hard on these super-speedway cars – they’re beautiful when they get to the racetrack.
‘Of course our Ally Camaro has been very fast since we unloaded. We focused a lot on winning the pole for the 500. It means a lot to us and we were able to achieve it naturally.
“Just really proud of everyone. It feels really good. It’s just great to drive this number 48 car. ”
Aric Almirola (190,178 km / h) finished third and top Ford, Bubba Wallace was fourth fastest (189,577 km / h) and top Toyota and Ryan Preece (189,565 km / h) finished fifth.
The top 10 was rounded off by Kevin Harvick, Christopher Bell, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Austin Dillon and Daniel Suarez.
By placing David Ragan and Preece the fastest speeds among the teams without charters, they are assured a starting position in the Daytona 500.
The rest of the 500 series will be determined by the results of Thursday night’s qualifying races.
Noah Gragson, who attempted to tackle the Daytona 500 with Beard Motorsports in the number 62 Chevrolet, could not make a qualifying attempt as his car failed three times.
He will have to start from the back of the field of his qualifying race on Thursday night, and his performance in that case will be the only way he can make the Daytona 500 field.
Derrike Cope also did not make a qualifying effort as his team had to replace batteries but could not complete them within five minutes.
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