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Kyle Larson wins third straight pole award in record time at Texas Motor Speedway

JHby:Jonathan Howard•04/13/24•

Jondean25

Kyle Larson Texas qualifying
Mandatory Credit: Michael C. Johnson-USA TODAY Sports

For the third week in a row, Kyle Larson wins the pole award in the NASCAR Cup Series. He also did it in a record time for the Next Gen car. The hot track at Texas Motor Speedway was no problem for Larson in his rocket ship.

Richmond, Martinsville, and now Texas. Three weeks in a row for Kyle Larson up front. His time of 28.366 is the fastest qualifying time ever on a 1.5-mile track in the Next Gen car. Larson snatched the pole award from Ty Gibbs.

This is also the 250th pole award for Hendrick Motorsports. Another historic milestone. Larson takes the lead in pole awards from Joey Logano with this effort.

Earlier this week Kyle Larson was doing the Open Test for the Indy 500. He said with how slick this Texas track is, it felt like he was going faster out there in the stock car. It feels like Larson is getting close to a dominant run where he doesn’t pick up just poles, but a number of wins, too.

His teammate William Byron has been on fire this season. Three wins already in 2024. So, Larson has some catching up to do.

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Kyle Larson has speed, needs to finish

It isn’t like Kyle Larson has had an awful season. He has a win and three additional top-5 finishes. Now he has three pole awards on the year and outside of a DNF at Atlanta, his worst finish was P17 after being spun at COTA.

At this point in the season last year, Larson already had three DNF finishes and another finish of P29. So, he’s ahead of the curve here. In fact, this is the fewest DNFs through the first eight races of a season for Larson ever, besides 2017 at Chip Ganassi and his 2021 championship season.

In 2022 and 2023, DNFs ultimately sank Larson’s championship hopes. He had 15 total DNFs between those two seasons combined. That adds up to 20% of the 72 races he ran in those two years.

The NASCAR Cup Series is best when there is a rabbit to chase. Kyle Larson and William Byron are giving the field two to chase so far this season. Let’s see if Larson dominates tomorrow like he has in many of his wins.