TALLADEGA, Ala. — Chase Elliott wasn’t born yet when his father turned a record-setting lap to win the pole at Talladega Superspeedway.
He’ll get to experience leading the field to green just like his dad did, though, after winning the pole himself on Saturday, 30 years after Bill Elliott’s blistering qualifying run.
Elliott turned a lap at 192.661 mph to put his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet in the top position for Sunday’s race. Bill Elliott won the pole in 1986 with a lap at 212.229 mph.
“This is definitely a special place,” said Chase Elliott, who grew up in Dawsonville, Georgia, which is 170 miles from Talladega. “This has always been a special place to him and it’s certainly great to be here and have the opportunity.”
Elliott also won the pole for the season-opening Daytona 500, but he crashed and finished 37th. He’s back in the same car he drove at Daytona, and he credited his No. 24 team and the Hendrick engine department for giving him such a good car.
“Man, this is cool,” he said. “Those guys do such a good job. And as I said in Daytona, this had nothing to do with me. This is the car that we had. This is the same car we had in Daytona. They brought another fast one here.”
It’s the fifth pole in the last six restrictor-plate races for the No. 24 Chevrolet. Jeff Gordon won three of those poles before he retired and turned the car over to Elliott this season.
Elliott is eager to finish his first plate race in the Sprint Cup Series.
“Obviously I have a lot to learn,” he said. “The race last time at Daytona didn’t go so good. Hopefully for me, I’ll just try to take what I learned and try to cut down those dumb mistakes that I made in the Daytona 500 this year and just try to be smarter. The first thing is making it to the end and obviously I didn’t do a very good job of that in February. Our first goal is to try to get to the end of the race; and if we can get there, just try to be smart.”
Austin Dillon qualified second for Sunday’s race with a lap at 192.424 mph. Driving the No. 3 Chevrolet that the late Dale Earnhardt drove to nine of his record 10 Talladega victories, Dillon hoped to give grandfather Richard Childress another trip to victory lane.
“There’s a lot of history here with Dale and RCR,” Dillon said. “A lot of good stuff happened with RCR here, so hopefully we can continue that streak of good runs for RCR here. We’ve got a car capable of doing that, obviously, with the qualifying effort, and I’d love for it to be my first Cup win.”
Defending race winner Dale Earnhardt Jr. qualified third to give Hendrick three cars in the top five. Jimmie Johnson qualified fifth.
Matt Kenseth qualified fourth in a Toyota, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Brad Keselowski were sixth and seventh in Fords, and Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin qualified eighth.
Carl Edwards qualified ninth to join Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Kenseth and Hamlin in the top 10.
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