CONCORD, N.C. -- Kevin Harvick has already proven he's a factor at Charlotte Motor Speedway, especially during night races. With the top starting spot tonight, he'll be tough to beat in the opening race of the second round of NASCAR's playoffs.
Harvick turned a lap at 196.029 mph in a Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet to earn the top starting spot in Thursday night's qualifying. He edged Alex Bowman, the replacement driver for Dale Earnhardt Jr., who is not racing for the championship.
It is Harvick's first pole of the season.
"I think any time you can eliminate track position, that's definitely a bonus for us," he said. "This hasn't really been our strongest day all year, qualifying day, in general has not been very good for us. So, to see the speed that the car immediately had ... I'm just really proud of the guys who will hopefully catapult us in the right direction to get the night started right."
Chase Elliott qualified third and was followed by Kyle Busch, the highest qualifying Toyota driver, Tony Stewart and AJ Allmendinger.
Martin Truex Jr., winner of two of the first three Chase races, qualified seventh.
He was followed by Carl Edwards, Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano, the top qualifying Ford driver, and Jimmie Johnson as Chase drivers took eight of the top 11 spots in qualifying.
Kasey Kahne qualified 12th as all four Hendrick Motorsports drivers made the final round of qualifying.
But it was Harvick, with his fast lap, who stole the spotlight.
Harvick, the 2014 champion, has been looking forward to racing at Charlotte and a potential automatic berth into the third round of the Chase. Harvick has three career points victories at Charlotte, including the October race during his championship season. That victory pushed Harvick into the round of eight of the Chase.
He's also has had success racing at night, and Charlotte Motor Speedway President Marcus Smith dubbed Harvick "Nighthawk" because the driver has not finished outside the top 10 at night in the last seven races. He's only been outside the top-five twice in that span.
Harvick has also won six times in night races on the NASCAR schedule since 2012, and he really wants win No. 7 to take the focus off upcoming races at Kansas and then the Chase eliminator at Talladega.
"It would be a lot easier on my blood pressure," he said. "Any of these races can jump up and bite you at really any particular time just because of the fact that you just never know. Obviously Talladega has the most things out of your control. So if you can get to victory lane, it's a huge benefit in this first round in the next two weeks."
Starting position isn't all that critical in a 500-mile race, but the drivers competing for the championship don't want the competition to get too big of a jump on them.
But four of the drivers in the field failed to make it out of the second round of qualifying. Matt Kenseth will start 17th, Austin Dillon will start 19th, Brad Keselowski 20th and Kurt Busch 23rd.
"We just lacked a little bit of speed in qualifying trim," Keselowski said. "You want to qualify and race good, and I think we've got a great Ford Fusion to do that."
Dillon was similarly optimistic.
"We had a good car in practice, we're going to be fine," he said.
Sports on 10/08/2016