Zane Smith earns first NASCAR Cup Series pole

LINCOLN, Ala. — For the first time in his NASCAR Cup Series career, Zane Smith will start on the pole for a race.

Smith ran a lap of 52.565 seconds and beat Kyle Busch by 0.132 seconds for the pole.

Busch, Joey Logano, Ryan Preece, Austin Dillon, Chris Buescher, Austin Cindric, Josh Berry, Ryan Blaney and Ty Gibbs round out the top 10-starters.

Last year’s winners at Talladega, Tyler Reddick and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. will start 26th and 35th respectively.

The average start of a Talladega winner is 18.7. Starting 18th and 19th are Alex Bowman and A.J. Allmendinger.

Excluding Stenhouse’s outlier 32nd-place start in his win last year, the average start of a Talladega winner is 16th — where William Byron starts Sunday. Byron has finished top-10 in each of the last four Cup races at Talladega, averaging 44 points per race in that span.

Here is the full starting lineup for the Jack Link’s 500 at Talladega: