Kyle Busch coming hot during his qualifying run at Los Angeles (Photo: Luis Torres | TPF).
LOS ANGELES — As the sun went down and turned into night, 36 NASCAR Cup Series cars hit the quarter-mile Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, hoping to set the tone for tomorrow’s Busch Light Clash.
When the dust settled, it was Kyle Busch’s time of 13.745 seconds (65.478 mph) that was fastest overall and will roll off first in Heat No. 1. The result was encouraging for the two-time Cup champion who was thrilled to have a car of his liking.
“When I fired up and run my first lap, I was all over the place. Slipping and sliding. Did it do anything? We all think it does, so we do it,” Busch on his qualifying approach. “Obviously, it was all good for us. Heating the tires, hitting the right line, all of it kind of lined up today.”
Another part of the No. 18 team’s improvement was ditching the idea of running a mechanical griped Toyota Camry. As a result, thinking outside the box paid off.
“We did a really good job with the car and get it to where I like it,” said Busch. “It was better in some cases (than in practice). We’re hoping that we setup good for the racing tomorrow and in the long runs.”
Behind Busch were Tyler Reddick, Justin Haley and Joey Logano. The trio will also start pole for Heats 2-4 respectively.
Busch was a part of the second group of cars to qualify and a theme became apparent. Qualifying late wasn’t the ideal draw.
Heavy hitters such as Chase Elliott, who was fastest in practice was seventh fastest. Defending Cup Series champion and the only guaranteed a main event spot Kyle Larson was a spot behind Elliott. They came out well after Busch’s run.
Busch during the post-qualifying press conference (Photo: Luis Torres | TPF).
Although Busch got the LA crowd to their feet, even coming in hot into the corners, his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates were cold. The trio of Christopher Bell, Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex, Jr. ended up 15th or worse. Therefore, they’ll have their work cut out for to make it to the 23-car main event.
While he’s in a good spot for the heat race, there’s still a possibility that Busch could miss out on the 150-lap feature. More so when testing the seventh-generation Cup car didn’t turned out well. Fortunately, Busch felt confident about his chances of making the main event.
“When we didn’t had a very good pre-season testing, I honestly came in here worried of not making the show. It goes to show you that our guys have crunched the numbers and worked hard,” Busch explained.
“They read into the things that we did in the test session. Talked about it and worked on it. Thought about the best of the changes that we made and all the runs that we ran.
“It’s all about communication and talking about the car, giving them every ounce of detail of what’s going on. Making sure they understand the different pieces of this car and what it takes to manipulate the setup and the things I’m talking about. Our guys did a great job today,” Busch concluded.
The first of four heats will commence at 3:00 p.m. ET on FOX. Those races will be 25 laps each with the heat winners occupying the first two rows. Should Busch win his heat, he’ll be the main event pole sitter.
In each heat race, the top-four finishers will advance to the main show. Once those races are done, there will be two last chance qualifying races (50 laps) where the top-three take positions 17-22.
Finally, the 23rd and finale spot will be given to the highest points finisher from last season that didn’t advance in any of the preliminaries.
Live coverage of the main event begins at 3:00 p.m. on FOX. The race consists of 150 laps with Busch being the defending Clash winner when the sport ran the Daytona International Speedway Road Course.
2022 Busch Light Clash Heat Race Starting Grid:
Heat 1
- 18 – Kyle Busch
- 99 – Daniel Suarez
- 47 – Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.
- 12 – Ryan Blaney
- 11 – Denny Hamlin
- 10 – Aric Almirola
- 78 – B.J. McLeod
- 38 – Todd Gilliland
- 1 – Ross Chastain
Heat 2
- 8 – Tyler Reddick
- 41 – Cole Custer
- 21 – Harrison Burton
- 48 – Alex Bowman
- 23 – Bubba Wallace
- 3 – Austin Dillon
- 14 – Chase Briscoe
- 6 – Brad Keselowski
- 19 – Martin Truex, Jr.
Heat 3
- 31 – Justin Haley
- 9 – Chase Elliott
- 24 – William Byron
- 20 – Christopher Bell
- 16 – A.J. Allmendinger
- 4 – Kevin Harvick
- 17 – Chris Buescher
- 7 – Corey LaJoie
- 51 – Cody Ware
Heat 4
- 22 – Joey Logano
- 5 – Kyle Larson
- 34 – Michael McDowell
- 77 – Landon Cassill
- 2 – Austin Cindric
- 43 – Erik Jones
- 15 – Ryan Preece
- 45 – Kurt Busch
- 42 – Ty Dillon
