Martin Truex Jr. wins pole for Sunday’s Cup Series race at Darlington

Martin Truex Jr. will lead the NASCAR Cup Series field to the green flag for Sunday's Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) after winning the pole in Saturday's qualifying session with a hot lap of 169.409 mph. It's Truex's first pole at the South Carolina race track and the 21st in his Cup Series career. RELATED: Sunday's starting lineup | At-track photos

Truex said his crew made adjustments to his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota that improved the car for the final round.

“We just made the balance really good,” said Truex, who scored a pole on his 15^th different race track. “We felt good about our car in Round 1, and I knew one specific thing, if we could get it better, we’d have a shot at it. It’s been a long time, I guess, since we’ve had a pole (last year at New Hampshire Motor Speedway).

“Last year, we never really qualified all that great. We’ve been working on that a lot and really getting a lot better on that here lately.”

Bubba Wallace will join Truex on the front row after a 169.339 mph lap. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., William Byron and Ross Chastain made up the top five. Daniel Suárez, Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, Tyler Reddick and Brad Keselowski rounded out the top 10 in the starting lineup for Sunday.

“Just got me,” Wallace said after Truex knocked him out of the top spot late in the round. “But all in all, a solid start to our weekend on the Cup side. I had some fun last night in the Truck Series. I forgot how crazy those guys are—guys and gals, I’m sorry.

“I learned a little bit. We were just on the tight side last night. Definitely not tight this go-around on the Cup side. All in all, our Camry is fast. Martin’s really good here, obviously… It’s good to start up front. I’ve just got to maintain it all race. That’s going to be a big task for me.”

PRACTICE Four of the five fastest laps in the two 20-minute practice sessions came from Chevrolet with Chase Elliott topping the charts with a 168.232 mph lap. Erik Jones, William Byron, the lone non-Chevy Tyler Reddick and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. completed the top five. The quick single laps translated to long-run pace for Byron (163.704 mph), Elliott (163.587 mph) and Stenhouse (163.206 mph) as they also found themselves in the top five of 10 consecutive lap averages. Last year's spring Darlington winner Joey Logano struggled to find pace Saturday as he was 19th in single-lap speed (164.904 mph) and 20th in 10 consecutive lap averages (162.263 mph). Contributing: Reid Spencer | NASCAR Wire Service