April 12, 2025 | By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service

Alex Bowman secures pole position for Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway

BRISTOL, Tenn. — A little ray of sunshine was all Alex Bowman needed to secure the pole position for Sunday’s Food City 500 (3 p.m. ET on FS1, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

Well, not quite all. Bowman also had to turn a blistering lap in his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet during Saturday’s time trials at the 0.533-mile short track, and he did just that.

Bowman covered the distance in 14.912 seconds (128.675 mph)—the fastest lap ever run at Bristol in the NASCAR Cup Series Gen 7 race car. That was good enough to hold off fellow Chevrolet driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (128.563 mph) by 0.013 seconds to secure the top starting spot for the ninth Cup race of the season.

It wasn’t just the Busch Light Pole Award that had Bowman salivating. Extensive tire wear in the practice session that preceded qualifying augured a race similar to last year’s spring event at Thunder Valley, where tire fall-off was a crucial aspect of the competition.

“I think we’re all much more prepared than we were last spring,” said Bowman, who ran his lap under favorable cloud cover—with the sun coming out shortly after his qualifying attempt and warming the track slightly on an otherwise chilly day.. “I’m excited for a tire-management race. It’s going to be a lot of fun. We’ll see what we’ve got.

“We started practice with rubber already on the track from the Xfinity cars, peeled it right up and sawed the tires right off. Yeah, confusing why we’re doing it again when we didn’t do it in the fall…

“It’s going to be warmer tomorrow. Maybe that changes it. It’s really difficult to say. I think it’s going to be like that (the spring race), but we’ll find out together, I think.”

Kyle Larson (128.511 mph) qualified third, after winning the pole position for Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race earlier in the day. Denny Hamlin, winner of the last two Cup events, was fourth in the fastest Toyota at 128.460 mph, and Ryan Blaney topped all other Ford drivers with a fifth-place qualifying lap at 128.305 mph.

In seven of the last eight Cup races at Bristol, the winner has come from the top five spots on the starting grid—two from the pole and two from the second starting position.

Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Ty Gibbs and Christopher Bell claimed the sixth and seventh starting spots, with AJ Allmendinger, Carson Hocevar and Justin Haley claiming positions eight, nine and 10, respectively.

Kyle Busch was 15th fastest in qualifying, but he spun off Turn 4 on his second lap and flat-spotted his tires. Joey Logano, who qualified immediately after Busch, broke loose off Turn 2 and smacked the outside wall with the right rear of his Team Penske Ford. Logano will start 38th on Sunday.

Jesse Love qualified 19th for his NASCAR Cup Series debut on Sunday in the No. 33 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet.


NASCAR Cup Series
Starting Line Up by Row
Bristol Motor Speedway
Food City 500

Provided by NASCAR Statistics - Saturday, 4/12/2025 @ 04:13 PM Eastern

Driver Date Time Speed

Track Race Record: Kyle Larson  09/21/24 2:37:53 101.277

Pos Car Driver Team Time Speed
Row 1: 1 48 Alex Bowman Ally Chevrolet 14.912 128.675
2 47 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. SUNNYD Chevrolet 14.925 128.563

Row 2: 3 5 Kyle Larson HendrickCars.com Chevrolet 14.931 128.511
4 11 Denny Hamlin Progressive Toyota 14.937 128.460

Row 3: 5 12 Ryan Blaney Menards/Richmond Water Heaters Ford 14.955 128.305
6 54 Ty Gibbs Monster Energy Toyota 14.964 128.228

Row 4: 7 20 Christopher Bell Rheem Toyota 14.969 128.185
8 16 AJ Allmendinger Grizzly Nicotine Pouches Chevrolet 15.002 127.903

Row 5: 9 77 Carson Hocevar Chili's Ride the 'Dente Chevrolet 15.019 127.758
10 7 Justin Haley NationsGuard Chevrolet 15.030 127.665

Row 6: 11 21 Josh Berry Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford 15.058 127.427
12 10 Ty Dillon Okuma Chevrolet 15.074 127.292

Row 7: 13 71 Michael McDowell Delaware Life Chevrolet 15.075 127.284
14 19 Chase Briscoe Bass Pro Shops Toyota 15.088 127.174

Row 8: 15 8 Kyle Busch Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen Chevrolet 15.097 127.098
16 6 Brad Keselowski Kroger/Oscar Mayer/Rustik Ovens Ford 15.098 127.090

Row 9: 17 3 Austin Dillon Get Bioethanol Chevrolet 15.099 127.081
18 38 Zane Smith Aaron's Lucky Dog Ford 15.130 126.821

Row 10: 19 33 Jesse Love(i) C4 Energy Chevrolet 15.137 126.762
20 9 Chase Elliott NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet 15.138 126.754

Row 11: 21 2 Austin Cindric Snap on Ford 15.149 126.662
22 23 Bubba Wallace U.S. Air Force Toyota 15.193 126.295

Row 12: 23 99 Daniel Suarez Choice Privileges Chevrolet 15.204 126.204
24 17 Chris Buescher BuildSubmarines.com Ford 15.246 125.856

Row 13: 25 35 Riley Herbst # Lucy Toyota 15.247 125.848
26 24 William Byron Axalta Chevrolet 15.263 125.716

Row 14: 27 45 Tyler Reddick The Beast Toyota 15.268 125.675
28 43 Erik Jones AdventHealth Toyota 15.274 125.625

Row 15: 29 60 Ryan Preece Boost by Kroger Ford 15.290 125.494
30 34 Todd Gilliland Love's Travel Stops Ford 15.297 125.436

Row 16: 31 4 Noah Gragson Rural King Ford 15.301 125.404
32 42 John Hunter Nemechek Dollar Tree Toyota 15.304 125.379

Row 17: 33 41 Cole Custer HaasTooling.com Ford 15.322 125.232
34 51 Cody Ware Arby's Ford 15.441 124.267

Row 18: 35 1 Ross Chastain Busch Light Flannel Chevrolet 15.448 124.210
36 88 Shane Van Gisbergen # Safety Culture Chevrolet 15.569 123.245

Row 19: 37 01 Corey LaJoie Schluter Systems Ford 15.641 122.678
38 22 Joey Logano Shell Pennzoil Ford 16.275 117.899

Row 20: 39 66 Josh Bilicki(i) Manscaped Ford 16.348 117.372

Did Not Qualify: None.

Manufacturer Starting Lineup DNQs Manufacturer Starting Lineup DNQs
Chevrolet 16 0 Ford 14 0
Toyota 9 0

(i) Ineligible for driver points in this series