Keselowski Takes Pole Position for Texas Playoff Race

The momentum for RFK Racing continued today as Keselowski put his No. 6 Mustang on pole for the first race in the Round of 12 of the playoffs. This is the 18th career pole for Keselowski and his second at Texas, where he has never won before.

"We just did a good job," Keselowski said. "We found some things that we needed to take to the next level and apply it to the racetrack. We want to win, but you have to start somewhere. We'll see, 500 miles on Sunday is a little bit different from qualifying, but a great start for us for sure. We are definitely growing."

Six of the top-ten drivers in qualifying are currently still in the playoffs as Joey Logano starts alongside his former teammate on the front row. William Byron continues his strong playoff run and starts on Row 2 next to Tyler Reddick, who was fastest in practice. Row 3 features Michael McDowell and current points leader Chase Elliott. Austin Dillon and Denny Hamlin make up Row 4 and Kyle Larson and Daniel Suarez will share Row 5 tomorrow.

Just missing out on advancing to the final round of qualifying were Austin Cindric and Ross Chastain. Chris Buescher, who won last weekend at Bristol, starts just behind them. Ryan Blaney and Martin Truex Jr rounded out the top-15 in qualifying as they both continue their pursuit of a win this season.

Several playoff drivers did not have a great Saturday. Alex Bowman qualified 17th, the worst of the four Hendrick Motorsports drivers. Chase Briscoe finds himself in a big hole, qualifying 30th today. He enters the race below the cutoff line, and will need a strong run in the race tomorrow.

The biggest surprise was Christopher Bell, who will start 22nd tomorrow. After three top-five finishes in the opening round of the playoffs, he had all of the momentum coming into this weekend. The driver of the No. 20 Camry was the slowest of the six Toyota cars in the field.

There are only three playoff drivers that have won at Texas before. Larson is the defending race winner, and will aim to become the first driver since Jimmie Johnson in 2015 to go back-to-back here. He will have to contend with all three of his teammates though, as all four Hendrick cars advanced into this round.

Team Penske still has all three of their cars in the playoffs and are hoping to duplicate their results from the All-Star race. Blaney won the event, although it did not count towards the playoffs. Cindric finished third in that race and Logano was right behind him in fourth. All three drivers will certainly be a factor in the race tomorrow, as they will start towards the front of the field.

Hamlin is a three-time winner at Texas but he has an average finishing position of 19th in his last seven races here. He finished second in the All-Star race and would love nothing more than to head to Talladega having already advanced to the next round.

The biggest issue for the No. 11 team this season has been their miscues on pit road. Their 37 penalties this season are the most among the garage, by a wide margin. With teammate Kyle Busch now eliminated from the playoffs, Joe Gibbs Racing is swapping the pit crews for these two teams this weekend.

Kevin Harvick may be eliminated from the playoffs, but the Stewart Haas Racing driver can certainly play the role of spoiler tomorrow. As we prepare for the fourth playoff race, none of the playoff drivers have been to victory lane. He starts 23rd tomorrow but Harvick does have three wins and 10 top-five finishes in his last 14 starts here. In fact, he has only missed out on the top-ten once over that time span.

Busch could also ruin the party by winning his fifth Texas race. As his tenure at JGR comes to an end, he would definitely like to celebrate with his team one more time. There is no better spot for him to do it, where he has the most top-five finishes among active drivers. His 1,069 laps led is also the most in the garage, nearly 400 more than the next-closest driver.

Larson won this race last year, locking him into the Championship Four, where he came away with the title. He knows the key to the playoffs this year is just not shooting yourself in the foot. "You have to be clean and let the other teams make the mistakes. If you can just finish, you don’t have to do anything crazy in the first couple rounds.”

The spotlight has been on the car all season, but the light is shining brighter now with the playoffs in full gear. It has created all sorts of drama and parity throughout the garage.

“This car has reset everything,” said Chastain. “You can’t bring different headers here. You can’t bring a new aero package. You’re trying to maximize everything, but we all have the same parts. We all order the same stuff. This has been the greatest reset that this sport has ever seen.”

Logano agrees with Ross. “We expected this year to be crazy and very unpredictable and no one really being able to figure this car out, and it really seems like there are still so many questions. Texas might be the most normal race, then you have the Roval and Talladega on top of that, it’s definitely going be a unique round for sure.”

Starting positions have been solidified and now teams can focus on race day. With the remaining two races in this round being wild cards, there will be even more of an emphasis on this one. Coverage for the Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 500 begins at 3:30 ET on USA Network.