Kurt Busch extends pole streak to three at Michigan

Kurt Busch extends pole streak to three at Michigan

By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

(June 18, 2011)

BROOKLYN, Mich.—Kurt Busch broke his routine at Michigan International Speedway—but it didn’t matter.

Even without a spin during Friday’s practice, Busch won his third straight Sprint Cup pole during Saturday’s time trials at the two-mile track.

Completing his first lap in 38.156 seconds (188.699 mph), Busch won the pole for Sunday’s Heluva Good 400. In his previous two pole-winning efforts—at Kansas and Pocono—Busch had spun during Friday’s practice before claiming the top starting spot on Saturday.

“This is the first time we’ve had a pole without spinning or wrecking our primary car,” Busch said. “This was a conventional weekend, so to speak.”

The Coors Light pole award was the 15th of Busch’s career. It was also the fourth straight pole for Penske Racing; Brad Keselowski started the streak at Charlotte in May.

Busch nipped David Reutimann (188.684 mph) by .003 seconds for the top starting spot in Sunday’s race, the 15th of the season. Matt Kenseth (188.620 mph) qualified third, followed by Brian Vickers (188.157 mph) and Regan Smith (187.607 mph).

Tony Stewart, Greg Biffle, Kasey Kahne, Paul Menard and Denny Hamlin will start from positions six through 10, respectively. Trevor Bayne qualified 17th for his first Cup race since being sidelined by illness after the April 17 event at Talladega.

Busch said the speed his team found in June is the result of a change of direction in the team’s approach to engineering his cars.

“The first few times after the changes that we made, the car was very different to drive,” Busch said. “Basically, it came down to just core setup in the car, and it came to the core pieces we’re bolting onto the car. It’s not like we changed chassis design overnight, but there are small things we’ve added there as well.”

Though Reutimann posted his season-best qualifying effort, the driver of the No. 00 Toyota was clearly disappointed at not winning the pole.

“I put too much wheel to it and let it get loose—bobbled it,” Reutimann said. “I don’t know why I did that. You’re supposed to unwind the wheel through there (the corner), right? The deal was, I felt like I cost us, and when you feel like you cost yourself a pole—especially when it’s that close—you’re disappointed.

“I’m happy that we qualified (well), but we should have been better than that. We should have had enough there. There are some times when you go out there and you leave it all on the racetrack, and you come in and go, ‘I don’t know what I could have done to go any faster.’ This is just not one of those times—unfortunately.”

Tony Raines, Brian Keselowski and Mike Skinner failed to qualify for the 43-car field.