By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service
(June 11, 2011)
LONG POND, Pa.—Kurt Busch has found a qualifying methodology that works—even if it’s a bit unconventional.
Busch won the pole Saturday for Sunday’s 5-Hour Energy 500 at Pocono Raceway after spinning his No. 22 Dodge in Friday’s practice and doing enough damage to force the use of a backup car.
With only 10 laps of practice time on the backup, Busch toured the 2.5-mile triangular track in 52.454 seconds (171.579 mph) in Saturday’s time trials to win his second straight Coors Light pole award and the 14th of his career.
That was a week after Busch spun in Friday practice and won the pole in a Saturday qualifying session at Kansas Speedway.
Busch edged Paul Menard (171.422 mph) and Jeff Gordon (171.350 mph) for the top starting pot in Sunday’s race, the 14th of the season in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series.
Even though Busch has used the spin-to-win approach for the past two weeks, he’d prefer not to make a habit of it.
“It’s a matter of knowing where the edge is—but not stepping over it,” Busch said. “(Friday), honestly, I missed my shift point, and it got me into trouble. Just trying new things—changing the rear gear, changing the transmission, just being in a different zone of elements and changes.
“Normally, in the last three years, we haven’t messed with gears at all. So it was cool to do that and mess with it, and it bit me, but today I went right back after it. I was aggressive, and I used the same procedure I was using (Friday) in practice to get the pole today.”
Four-time Pocono winner Denny Hamlin qualified fourth at 171.174 mph, one spot ahead of Regan Smith (171.164 mph). Series points leader Carl Edwards, Marcos Ambrose, Ryan Newman, David Reutimann and Mark Martin will start from positions six through 10, respectively.
Because there was a consistent cloud cover over the track throughout the session, there was little difference in track temperature and grip from beginning to end.
“We really thought it would rain, so we posted a good lap in practice, which made us go out late,” said Menard, the 43rd of 44 drivers to make a qualifying attempt. “When you look at hourly forecasts, it was 70 degrees from start to finish, so the track conditions didn’t change a lot.
“It might have gotten a little bit hotter, but I think we got a little bit of cloud cover right at the end of qualifying, so that probably helped.”
Mike Skinner crashed during his qualifying run and failed to make the 43-car field.
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