Kyle Busch takes Bristol pole with track record lap
March 15, 2013
By Seth Livingstone
NASCAR Wire Service
BRISTOL, Tenn. -- Across the
board, drivers marveled at the speed of NASCAR’s Generation-6 cars
during qualifying for Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.
None more than Kyle Busch,
the fastest of nine drivers to break the 15-second mark on their
qualifying lap. Prior to Friday, only three drivers (Ryan Newman, Carl
Edwards, Jeff Gordon) had turned
a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series qualifying lap in less than 15 seconds.
''I like driving it,'' said Busch, whose 11th
career pole marked his first Coors Light Pole Award at Bristol and the
first time he’d qualified higher than ninth on the .533-mile oval.
''You can drive it a lot more like the older car we had years ago where
you can abuse it a little bit.
''The previous
(Generation-5) car was all about being smooth and precise. (With) this
one, you can make a little more speed by driving it a little harder.''
Busch, no stranger to
victory lane at Bristol, captured the pole with a lap 129.535 mph
(14.813 seconds) in the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Newman’s track
record, set in 2003, had been 128.709
mph.
Each of Friday’s top three
qualifiers -- Busch, Kasey Kahne and Denny Hamlin -- shattered Newman’s
mark. Hamlin looked like he might join his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate on
the front row until Kahne
knocked him down a peg .
Brian Vickers , Paul Menard ,
Jamie McMurray, Brad Keselowski, Tony Stewart and Martin Truex Jr. also
eclipsed 15 seconds, with Joey Logano rounding out the top 10.
''The car felt great during
that lap,'' said Busch, who has come from off the pace to win five times
(including four of the last eight Cup races) at Bristol . ''We’ve never
really worried too much
about qualifying runs. We unloaded with a really good race car and we
just kept fine-tuning to make it a little bit better -- and we were able
to get it where it was pretty quick in practice.''
For Hamlin, if even for just
a couple laps, it was felt good to get back to all-out racing. Hamlin
had spent recent days embroiled in controversy, refusing to pay a
NASCAR-issued fine after critical
comments regarding the Gen-6 car at Phoenix.
He had no gripe with his machinery on Friday.
''I’m pretty happy with what
we’ve got,'' said Hamlin, who earlier in the day said he had ''bigger
fish to fry'' than worrying about the $25,000 fine. ''For my team’s
sake, we need to focus on
running as good as we can and trying to make this Chase. Any
distraction is something that you don’t need -- especially when the
competition is so close. You just can’t afford anything that hampers
your ability to go win, so this is going to be a step in the
right direction for us.''
Kahne, driving the No. 5
Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, thought he might have challenged
Busch had he not been a little tight between Turns 1 and 2.
''I felt like I may have
given up a little bit in 1 and 2, which would have made it really close
for the pole,'' Kahne said. ''But still we were very good in 3 and 4.
The car was balanced really
nice.''
How fast can cars go at Bristol? Maybe closer to 14 seconds than 15, according to Busch.
''I think a lot of it is
probably (about the) tire,'' he said. ''You could certainly put a softer
tire on here and go lights-out. You’d have trouble making it very much
longer after that, but I
betcha you could run somewhere it the low 14s.''
Cup Series points leader Jimmie Johnson qualified 13th. Keselowski, who trails by five points, rolls off seventh, but Dale Earnhardt Jr., 10 points back in points, qualified 32nd.
Scott Riggs was the lone
driver failing to qualify on Friday. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was forced to
change an engine during practice and will start at the rear of the field
despite qualifying with
the 28th fastest time.
No comments:
Post a Comment