Kevin Harvick leads SHR sweep of top two rows at Kansas

Kevin Harvick's led a Stewart Haas Racing sweep of the front two rows to claim the pole for the Digital Ally 400 at the Kansas Speedway.

The SHR brigade came out of the gate roaring with first Clint Bowyer being the first to light up the of the pylon with a lap of 30.282 seconds. The lap initially looked steady until Harvick roared out of the gate in his No. 4 Busch Beer Ford Mustang.

He responded with a lap of 30.131 seconds which sealed the deal for his fifth pole at Kansas.

The 2014 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion felt the result was a good shot in the arm as he and the team seek their first win of the season.

“The mile-and-half race tracks have been quite a handful for us as we’ve gone through the beginning of the season,” said Harvick, who claimed his second pole of the season. “From new cars to different engines and different headers and body builds and new sim files and aero maps – you name it, this is the next step.

“They’ve done a great job. Everybody knew we were a little bit behind but we saw some light at Texas. Everybody’s done a great job today. The car is fast and it drives great in traffic and hopefully when it gets dark tomorrow night, we’ll have another good night in Kansas.”

The run completes the second 1-2-3-4 team sweep for SHR, the first coming at last year’s Talladega fall race.

Aric Almirola was one of the last to qualify and clocked the second quickest time at 30.214s. That moved Bowyer back to third as Daniel Suarez rounded up the brigade in fourth.

Chase Elliott effectively was the best of the rest as he clocked fifth in his No. 9 Napa Auto Parts Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. Martin Truex, Jr. found himself seventh and sandwiched between two Hendrick ZL1 Camaros with William Byron logging the seventh quickest time.

Kyle Larson ended up eighth ahead of 2011 race winner Brad Keselowski while Alex Bowman completed the top ten.

Points leader Kyle Busch qualified outside the top ten for the third straight week and will roll off 13th.