No surprise at the top, Kyle Busch takes pole - Speedway Digest

There has been only one driver to have dominated the last three times out at Phoenix International Raceway. That individual is Kyle Busch.

The Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) driver posted a speed of 133.963 mph in the final round and was just enough to nip Brad Keselowski’s time by .008 seconds.

Keselowski posted the fastest speed for the time being in both rounds, until Busch trumped the No. 22 in each round by going faster. Busch led 155 of 168 laps en route to victory in the spring, before rain called the event and gave the No. 54 team their first win of the 2014 season.

His Camping World Truck Series driver and JGR teammate, Erik Jones, continued to show speed, albeit from his Truck win the night before in Phoenix. Jones posted a time of 26.932 seconds to slot the No. 20 GameStop Toyota in third. The 18-year-old driver led 114 of 126 laps Friday night, before NASCAR decided to call the race after a number of power outages and making it back-to-back wins for Jones in the Truck series at Phoenix.

All three JGR cars were in the top-five, with Elliott Sadler qualifying fourth. The first driver that was neither Ford nor Toyota was Alex Bowman in a Chevrolet in fifth. Bowman is making his second start in the No. 5 car for JR Motorsports this season. Teammate Regan Smith was right behind in sixth and rookie Chase Elliott was in 10^th, making all three JR Motorsports cars inside the top 10. At one time in the first round, the team was in the first three spots.

Between Smith and Elliott was a sandwich of Richard Childress Racing (RCR) cars. Ty Dillon was the highest RCR car in seventh, with Brendan Gaughan and Brian Scott right behind.

In the first round, the bubble spot in 12^th changed rapidly, as all three Roush-Fenway Racing drivers were it in at one point. Ryan Reed was in it before teammate Chris Buescher sat in the spot. A few more cars went out and Trevor Bayne was bumped back to 12^th. Bayne made it to the final round, but could only muster 12^th and starts from that spot in today’s race. Buescher was the first car to miss the final round in 13^th, with Reed slotting in 15^th.

Another Buescher didn’t make it to the final round either. Chris’s cousin, James, posted the 16^th fastest time in the first round in his No.99 Rheem Toyota.

Mackena Bell will make her NNS debut and start 39^th in the No. 23 Rick Ware Racing Chevrolet. Chad Boat and Kelly Admiraal both return to the series this week as well. Boat ran last week at Texas Motor Speedway, while Admiraal last ran for RAB Racing at Richmond in September.

Derrike Cope grabbed the last spot in the field in 40^th, as the No. 46 of Ryan Ellis was the only car not to qualify for Saturday’s race.

All three of NASCAR’s top series broke their respectable track qualifying records this weekend.

The green flag for the DAV 200 Honoring America’s Veterans will drop around 4 p.m. ET and will be shown on ESPN.

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Kyle Magda

Currently, I’m a journalism student in college who enjoys the sport of racing. I've been following NASCAR in-depth since 2001.Along with my love of racing, I’m also into baseball, football (college & pro), and college basketball.I also have my own website, The Life of Kyle, where I write about various topics.And to get my feet wet into radio, I have my own show called Overdrive. I started it with my friend. Since we can’t record together most of the time, we have our own versions. I cover NASCAR and ARCA, and he takes Formula One and IndyCar.Not forgetting to mention, I have my own YouTube channel as well.As for race tracks, I’ve gone to races at Pocono, Watkins Glen, Daytona, Dover, Loudon and a few local short tracks as well. I hope to cross the Indianapolis 500 off my list in the future. I hope to become a man of many hats.