LONG POND — Pocono International Raceway is shortly becoming one of Ryan Blaney’s favorite Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) tracks.

Blaney won the June 2017 race for his first and only career victory and qualified fourth and fifth in his two qualifying attempts in 2017.

It looks like 2018 could be even better for the 24-year old PENSKE Race Team driver at Pocono.

That’s because Blaney will have all the clean air in front of him for the start of Sunday’s Pocono 400, winning the Busch Pole Award with a lap of 50.77 seconds (176.897 mph). Friday’s pole was Blaney’s fourth of his career, and his second pole and ninth top-10 start in 2018.

“I’ve always enjoyed this place,” said Blaney. “I’ve always enjoyed racing here, and it was always fun coming here to watch my dad race. I made my first start in a race car in the dirt track behind turn 3, it’s just always been a special place to me. Actually, when I was a kid there used to be a place, a smaller Pocono we would call it by turn one where we would race scooters. I just have a lot of special memories here growing up.

“I think ultimately this place just suits me as a driver and our team as well. We communicate very well here, and we know exactly where we need to be for practice, for qualifying, and the race.”

Blaney was solid in the first two rounds of qualifying, ranking fifth and third, but didn’t think he had enough for Kevin Harvick, who looked to be the strongest car through the first two frames.

“I didn’t think we had the speed for Kevin, he seemed to be the car to beat after the first two. I know we gained some speed each round and I know we had a pretty solid lap in the final round, and when I looked down at the dash I was definitely surprised,” said Blaney.

“I knew it was a good lap, but I didn’t know it was that good.”

It’s safe to say that Harvick has been a dominant force this season on the MENCS circuit, already winning five races and ranking second in the playoff outlook. Harvick, who is 0-for-34 at Pocono, has been good there of late, finishing second four times among six top-10s in his last seven Pocono races.

Harvick put together a qualifying performance that was collectively the best of the day, posting the best times in the first two rounds, and coming through with a second-place finish in the final round. The 42-year old veteran has been dominant in qualifying this season and Sunday will be his 12th top-10 start of the season.

“In the final round we were good through both one and two, but then we slid back a little bit in three, and then I had to get on the brake in the center of the corner and we gave up a little bit of time,” said Harvick. “But in the end we stuck to our goal, which was to get better every round and not make any mistakes.

“That’s been our goal throughout the season in qualifying and it’s worked out pretty well for us. Obviously, you want the pole, but last time when I went hard for the pole here I drove it too far into one and missed the turn and qualified 12th, so that’s the opposite side of it.”

With all of Harvick’s recent success over the years, especially his success since joining Stewart-Haas Racing in 2014, a Pocono win has eluded him. Harvick has finished runner-up in the last two races here to Blaney (June 2017) and Kyle Busch (July 2017) and his average finish of 10.5 ranks second among all active MENCS drivers.

A win, it seems, with all of Harvick’s success so far in 2018 could be just around the “Tricky Triangle.”

“I think it could happen at any time,” said Harvick. “My team has given me fast race cars pretty much every week. In my first 13 years, besides Dover, Pocono was one of my worst tracks, but this place has been pretty good to us as of late.

“These races aren’t easy to win, especially here. In order to win here you need to have a really fast car, and then on top of that, have a lot of things go your way. There’s so many factors with fuel mileage and cautions, you really can’t afford to get too far behind the leader and lose track position.”

Jamie McMurray was the fastest Chevrolet on the day, coming through with a third-place starting spot, while Martin Truex Jr. and Kyle Busch rounded out the top five.