Chase Elliott leads all Hendrick front row in Dover Qualifying

Chase Elliott led the fourth Hendrick Motorsports front row sweep of the season to win the pole for the Gander RV 400 at the Dover International Speedway.

Elliott’s sophomore teammate William Byron was the early pacer of the session. He clocked a track-record worthy lap of 21.745 seconds in his No. 24 Axalta Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. The lap stood for around 40 minutes as no one in the field knocked him off the top of the scoring pylon.

That all changed when Elliott roared out of the gate to take his qualifying lap. He hustled his No. 9 NAPA Brakes Chevrolet to best his teammate by .053s with a lap of 21.692.

The lap beat the previous record of 21.891s set by Brad Keselowski in 2014.

The 23-year-old from Dawsonville, Georgia is riding a high after winning last week's race at Talladega and wishes to keep the momentum rolling heading into Sunday's 400-lap race.

"Team Hendrick 1-2 was awesome, Chevrolet power and everybody that contributes to our car has been working hard," said Elliott, who won at the 1.0 mile oval last fall. "Hopefully, we can back it up on Sunday.”

“It’s going to be a really tough race. So, you’d better eat your Wheaties these next couple of days and hydrate, because I think Sunday is going to be tough, especially if the sun is out like it is right now."

The Hendrick pair led a Chevrolet sweep of the top three with Chip Ganassi Racing’s Kyle Larson ending up third after logging the second quickest lap in practice earlier in the day.

Joey Logano broke up the Bowtie Brigade with the fourth quickest time while Alex Bowman made it three Hendrick Camaros in the top five. The top five cars broke the track record.

The Stewart Haas Racing Ford Mustangs of defending race winner Kevin Harvick and Aric Almirola claimed sixth and seventh. Almirola will race sans his car chief due to his No. 10 Smithfield Ford failing inspection twice.

Denny Hamlin was the only Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota in the top ten in eighth and rounding out the top ten are 2014 race winner Brad Keselowski and Clint Bowyer.

Dover master Jimmie Johnson was the only Hendrick Camaro out of the top ten and will chase his 12th win at the Monster Mile from the 12th spot.

Kurt Busch set the fastest lap of the day in the morning practice session at 21.372s. He battled a loose race car on his opening lap and salvaged the 19th quickest lap.

Younger brother Kyle also has his work cut out for him on Sunday as he will defend his Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series points load from the 22nd spot.