Aric Almirola wins Busch Pole at Atlanta, first since 2012

Aric Almirola topped the leaderboard at 181.473 mph in the No. 10 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford on Friday, winning the Busch Pole Award for Sunday’s Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 (2 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

This is Almirola’s first pole at Atlanta, and the second of his career — the first came in 2012.

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Right behind the No. 10 Ford was Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in the No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford at 180.428 mph.

Rounding out the top five in qualifying were Clint Bowyer in the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford (180.410 mph), after leading the first two rounds of qualifying, Denny Hamlin in the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota (180.328 mph) and Daniel Suarez in the No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford (180.216 mph).

For Almirola, he made 234 Monster Energy Series starts between his pole awards. That ranks as six-longest stretch of all time, behind Michael Waltrip (456), Paul Menard (358), David Gilliland (259), Mark Martin (256) and Kevin Harvick (254).

The final practice session for the Monster Energy Series is Saturday at 12 p.m. ET on FS1.

This story will be updated.

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