Joe Gibbs Racing was the class of the field during pole qualifying at Phoenix International Raceway on Saturday for the Dollar General 200 NASCAR Nationwide Series race to be held later in the day.
Kyle Busch claimed the pole with a lap time of 27.056. he was the only driver to turn a lap in excess of 133 mph. It's his fifth Nationwide pole at PIR to go along with four series wins at the track.
"Looking forward to today's race to see what it has in store for us," Busch said. "So far, so good."
He'll be joined on the front row by Brian Vickers, one of JGR's full-time drivers in the series. Vickers timed in at 27.234 seconds.
"Ot was a great run," Vickers said. "I think we made a lot of really great changes to the car (in practice)."
Matt Kenseth qualified third to give Joe Gibbs Racing the top-three spots on the starting grid. After making his run but prior to Busch heading out onto the track for qualifying, Kenseth predicted the Busch pole.
"Pretty happy with our car, but I think it's going to be a Kyle Busch day," Kenseth said.
The remaining JGR driver, Elliott Sadler, qualified 15th.
The best of the rest was Trevor Bayne, who qualified fourth. Justin Allgaier rounded out the top-five. Qualifying sixth through 10th were Austin Dillon, Jimmie Johnson in a rare Nationwide Series appearance, Aric Almirola in a substitute role for the injured Michael Annett, Brad Keselowski and Kevin Harvick.
Forty drivers made qualifying attempts and all received spots on the starting grid for Saturday's race.
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