Assimilation no problem for top qualifiers at Iowa Speedway

NEWTON - When drivers step into a car they don't occupy on a weekly basis, there's always a period of assimilation.

Crew chiefs either need to be introduced or reintroduced to the substitute driver's style and preferences in the handling of their racecar. Headed into qualifying for Sunday's NASCAR Nationwide Series Get to Know Newton 250 at Iowa Speedway, the drivers who sat in the sport's top rides made that process quick.

As a result, they ended up at the top of the leader board, with Ryan Blaney taking the pole position in the No. 22 car normally driven by Brad Keselowski. Sam Hornish Jr. was second in the No. 54 normally driven by Kyle Busch, and Michael McDowell was third in the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing car which has a rotating cast of JGR drivers.

'Every driver's so different. Every driver likes their own thing; we have our own little tweaks to the racecar,” Blaney said. 'You get a great baseline (from) Brad here, and it's really fast getting going - which this team usually is everywhere. They're fast unloading just because of all the preparation they do.

'It's easy for me to fly in and have the car fast right away and we can tinker on it a little bit. It's so important to unload really fast so you can tweak on the car a little bit and really make it good.”

Blaney's qualifying effort was a bit of a surprise to the driver, who captured his first Nationwide pole award at a track where he won his first NASCAR Camping World Truck Series win in 2012. He didn't get practice on Friday because he was in Charlotte to race his No. 29 Brad Keselowski Racing truck in the Camping World Truck Series race.

But for McDowell and Hornish, Friday was key to be able to get as much time on the track with their teams as possible and continue to develop a relationship with their crew chief and crew members.

'It was a great thing we had the test (Friday) because it gave me an opportunity to get in the car on a track where you actually have a bit more to do with it than we had at Talladega,” Hornish said. 'We were so good off the truck, I wish we would've just raced after that.

'The races I'm scheduled to run this year all fall with only like a week or two in between them, so it gives me an opportunity to have that repetition of being in the racecar.”

While Hornish had a week previous to get to know his team a little bit, McDowell was in his first days of working with crew chief Kevin Kidd and the No. 20 team.

He too enjoyed the extra day, and was happy to be frustrated with a third-place qualifying run.

'It was good to have a day to work with him and how to communicate; just small stuff,” McDowell said. 'With my Cup program (being with another team), I come in for this and don't ask a lot of questions and just kind of pop in.

'It's tough, but when the cars unload that good, it makes my job a lot easier for sure.”

Of course, experience helps in being able to make the assimilation gap smaller. That shines even more light on what Blaney was able to do on Saturday.

Hornish remembers what it was like to be new and certainly doesn't take for granted being able to run fast right away in a part-time ride - even if it's one that is a threat to win every week with its normal driver.

'I think once you get to know what you want out of a racecar, and how to work with people and explain what you want, it gets a lot easier to have that lapse in time,” Hornish said. 'When you're young and starting out in the sport and figuring out where you need to be, you need to be in that every weekend with as much seat time as possible. Obviously it doesn't hurt to get into the caliber of ride I'm in at Joe Gibbs Racing.”

Cedar Rapids native Landon Cassill had a solid qualifying run and will start ninth on Sunday in his No. 01 Chevrolet. Fellow Cedar Rapids native Joey Gase qualified 29th.

Regan Smith and Dylan Kwasniewski completed the top five starting positions. The race is set to start at 1 p.m.

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