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Christopher Bell, Brad Keselowski score All-Star heat race wins at North Wilkesboro

NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. — Brad Keselowski and Christopher Bell each scored dominating wins in Saturday’s heat races at North Wilkesboro Speedway and will start on the front row for Sunday night’s All-Star Race.

The heat races set the lineup for Sunday’s exhibition race. Keselowski was already assured the No. 1 starting spot by posting the fastest time in qualifying Friday.

Keselowski led 74 of 75 laps to win his heat race. Ross Chastain finished second, William Byron was third, Ryan Blaney finished fourth and Alex Bowman placed fifth.

MORE: Heat 1 results

MORE: Heat 2 results

Keselowski was the only car in the top five of the nine-car race that ran the same set of tires for the entire distance.

“Those guys that put tires on, they were really hard to hold off,” Keselowski said. “I had the preferred groove and just tried to use it to my advantage. We’ll see if that’s the case (Sunday).”

Keselowski said the track was racy.

“It’s definitely not a single groove racetrack,” he said. “They were running me real hard. We had good pace and that was a little bit of a dogfight, so I thought it was great racing.”

Keselowski has finished second in the All-Star Race three times. That’s tied for the most runner-up finishes without winning the event, which pays $1 million to the winner.

With Kyle Larson at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Justin Allgaier drove Larson’s No. 5 in practice and qualifying Friday.

Bell led 69 of the 75 laps to win the second heat Saturday.

“I knew (Friday) in practice that if they could get some rear grip in it, I felt like I had a lot of car potential,” Bell said. “The guys did an amazing job on just making the car better overnight and it was really refreshing to get out there and just cruise those first 30 laps.

“Then, I didn’t know how it was going to work with having Joey (Logano) right behind me, but this thing was on rails. I’m really happy and excited about the opportunity (Sunday).”

The only laps Bell didn’t lead were when Chase Briscoe did not pit with the rest of the field, attempting the same strategy Keselowski used to win the first heat. Briscoe said it was his call to stay out.

It didn’t work. He didn’t get a good restart, got hung three wide and fell back outside the top five in the 10-car race before contact spun him on the frontstretch.

Logano finished second, Chase Elliott third, Kyle Busch fourth and Chris Buescher fifth.