Shane van Gisbergen wins the pole for Cup Series race in downtown Chicago
Van Gisbergen has won the pole for Sunday's Grant Park 165. The 36-year-old New Zealander turned a lap at 88.338 mph on a tricky 2.2-mile course that was made more treacherous by temperatures in the 90s Fahrenheit on Saturday.
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'Practice wasn't that great for us, but when we went out for qualifying, the car felt really good,' van Gisbergen said. 'We turned in two pretty good laps.'
The Trackhouse Racing driver will be joined on the front row by Michael McDowell, who grabbed the second slot at 87.879 mph. Carson Hocevar (87.824 mph), Tyler Reddick (87.779 mph) and Chase Briscoe (87.734 mph) rounded out the top five.
McDowell is one of three drivers who finished in the top 10 in the first two races in downtown Chicago.
'Our car's in the game,' he said. 'Tomorrow will be a mixed bag with potential weather in and out. So a lot of variables to go out there and navigate.'
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Van Gisbergen, a three-time champion in Australia's Supercars, also was on the pole for Saturday's Xfinity Series race.
'I learned a lot in the Xfinity Series car this morning, and that just gives you a great leg up for the Cup car,' he said. 'I think it's great running both cars, it certainly helps.'
Just two years ago, van Gisbergen raced to a historic victory in a rainy first edition of NASCAR's downtown Chicago experiment. Making the most of his extensive street racing experience, he became the first driver to win his Cup Series debut since Johnny Rutherford in the second qualifying race at Daytona in 1963.
He won Chicago's Xfinity Series stop last year and the first stage in the Cup race before he was knocked out by a crash.
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Katherine Legge became the first woman to qualify for the Cup race in downtown Chicago when she turned a lap of 85.744 mph, knocking Corey Heim out of the field.
'We would have been a lot faster, I think, had I not kept nicking the wall,' Legge said. "I've given my crew a lot of work to do from that, but we had to keep pushing to put it in the show. I'm really proud of this team, and I'm very much looking forward to tomorrow.'
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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
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