'Alex Bowman Dominates Bristol Qualifying, Secures Pole Position'

Bristol, Tennessee -- Alex Bowman secured the top starting spot for Sunday's Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) with a little bit of luck and a blistering lap in his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet during Saturday's time trials at the 0.533-mile short track.

Bowman's lap of 14.912 seconds (128.675 mph) was the fastest ever run at Bristol in the NASCAR Cup Series Next Gen car, edging out fellow Chevrolet driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (128.563 mph) by just 0.013 seconds.

But it wasn't just the Busch Light Pole Award that had Bowman excited. The extensive tire wear during practice compared to last year's spring event in Thunder Valley has him looking forward to a tire management race.

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\"I think we're all much more prepared than we were last spring,\" said Bowman, who ran his lap under favorable cloud cover. \"I'm excited for a tire management race. It's going to be a lot of fun. We'll see what we've got.\"

Kyle Larson qualified third, Denny Hamlin was fourth, and Ryan Blaney rounded out the top five. In seven of the last eight Cup races at Bristol, the winner has come from the top five starting positions.

Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Ty Gibbs and Christopher Bell claimed the sixth and seventh starting spots, with AJ Allmendinger, Carson Hocevar, and Justin Haley rounding out the top 10.

Kyle Busch had a spin during qualifying, resulting in a 15th place starting position. Joey Logano also had a mishap, hitting the wall and starting 38th on Sunday.

Xfinity Series regular Jesse Love will make his Cup Series debut on Sunday, starting in 19th place.

In practice, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. topped the leaderboard, followed by Team Penske drivers Ryan Blaney and Austin Cindric. Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott rounded out the top five for Hendrick Motorsports.

Brad Keselowski, Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, John Hunter Nemechek, and Alex Bowman completed the top 10.

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--Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service. Special to Field Level Media.