Tyler Reddick would never consider Richmond (VA) Raceway as one of his best tracks. In 11 career starts on the .75-mile short track between the NASCAR Xfinity Series and NASCAR Cup Series, he’s never led a lap.

Maybe that changes on Sunday.

Reddick topped the 10-car final round with a lap of 113.689 mph en route to his fifth career Busch Pole Award.

Oddly enough, the pole sitter hasn’t won here in the last 12 starts, but Reddick is hopeful that changes in his No. 45 Toyota in Sunday’s Cook Out 400 (3 p.m. ET, USA, MRN). His best Cup finish at Richmond is 11th (Sept. 2020) with him also coming home 16th in April and 31st in this very race a year ago.

However, he’s heating up on the season as this was his fourth front row start in the last seven races to go along with finishing 6th and 2nd the last two weeks. In fact, he’s trending for a win with improving his finishing spot in each of the last 7 weeks. He went from 35th to 33rd to 30th to 28th to 27th to 6th then 2nd. The only spot left is a win.

He’ll be joined on the front row from Kyle Busch. The Richard Childress Racing driver went 113.636 mph in his No. 8 Chevrolet on a hot steamy Saturday afternoon in southern Virginia.

This was the first top five starting spot out of him since his pole in Gateway with him qualifying 18th or worse in three of the past four races entering. Still, for him to snag a second place start on what he has considered his worst tracks this season is saying something too.

Last week’s winner, Denny Hamlin (113.536 mph) starts third while Chase Elliott (113.503 mph) and Bubba Wallace (113.374 mph) rounded out the top five.

William Byron (113.369 mph), Ty Gibbs (113.355 mph), Kevin Harvick (113.246 mph), Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (112.843 mph) and Martin Truex Jr. (112.622 mph) were also in the final round.

Sunday’s race will have both 23XI Racing cars rolling off in the top five as well as five total Toyota’s in the top 10 between Hamlin, Gibbs and Truex Jr. HMS has a pair of cars in the top six meaning 6 of the top 7 starters are either HMS or Toyota drivers.

Stenhouse Jr. qualified eighth here this spring and now ninth on Saturday.

The biggest headscratcher was Christopher Bell being only 29th quickest. He’s qualified in the top five in four of the last six weeks but faces his second worst starting spot all season now.

On the opposite side of the coin, Team Penske struggled in having just the 23rd (Joey Logano), 25th (Ryan Blaney) and 30th (Austin Cindric) starting spots.

Cook Out 400 Starting Lineup

Row 1: Tyler Reddick, Kyle Busch

Row 2: Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott

Row 3: Bubba Wallace, William Byron

Row 4: Ty Gibbs R, Kevin Harvick

Row 5: Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Martin Truex Jr.

Row 6: Ryan Preece, Noah Gragson R

Row 7: Brad Keselowski, Kyle Larson

Row 8: Alex Bowman, Todd Gilliland R

Row 9: Austin Dillon, Michael McDowell

Row 10: Ross Chastain, Chase Briscoe

Row 11: BJ McLeod, Harrison Burton

Row 12: Joey Logano, Aric Almirola

Row 13: Ryan Blaney, Chris Buescher

Row 14: Erik Jones, Justin Haley

Row 15: Christopher Bell, Austin Cindric

Row 16: Corey LaJoie, Ryan Newman

Row 17: Daniel Suarez, Ty Dillon

Row 18: JJ Yeley, AJ Allmendinger