Brad Keselowski Wins Sprint Cup Pole At Kentucky Speedway
June 27, 2014
Chris Knight
NASCAR Wire Service
With a
new track record Friday at Kentucky Speedway, Brad Keselowski became the
fourth different Coors Light Pole Award winner at the 1.5-mile speedway
in advance of tomorrow
night’s Quaker State 400 presented by Advance Auto Parts.
With a
lap of 28.603 seconds at 188.791 miles per hour, Keselowski in his No. 2
Miller Lite Ford Fusion knocked Team Penske teammate Joey Logano from
the top-spot with under
three minutes remaining in the final five-minute session. The previous
track record held by Dale Earnhardt Jr. in 2013 at 183.636 miles per
hour was beaten by 23 drivers.
Kentucky
marks the Rochester Hills, Michigan native’s third pole of the season.
The 30-year old has already matched his career total coming into this
season. Team Penske also
recorded their third joint front-row start of the season. The 2012
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion also won this event in his
championship season after starting eighth.
Earlier Friday, Keselowski also recorded his 15th career pole in the NASCAR Nationwide Series.
"The
last few years we've been awful in qualifying, so ying and yang, it's
balancing back out,” said Keselowski. "It's a huge morale booster for us
and we've got to make it
count on race day. Qualifying is great, but on Monday nobody talks
about who won the pole -- they talk about who won the race. We want to
be that guy."
Logano,
who paced both the first and second knockout sessions respectively made
a last minute effort to try and bump Keselowski, but came up nearly
two-tenths short for his
fourth second-place starting spot of the year.
"We won
the first two sessions and I'm like, 'Man, isn't it going to rain?'"
Logano said. "It didn't rain and we came in second. … We keep winning
the wrong session."
Hendrick
Motorsports’ Jeff Gordon was third followed by Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny
Hamlin and Stewart-Haas Racing’s Kevin Harvick rounding out the
top-five.
Gordon though despite starting from the inside of row-two, was extremely satisfied with his effort.
“Oh my
gosh you never want to be satisfied unless you are on the pole or in
Victory Lane, but this sort of feels like a victory for me because that
first run was not pretty,”
said Gordon. "I don’t know the car just didn’t do what I wanted it to
do. That was a pretty wild session for the Drive to End Hunger
Chevrolet, but those last two or three runs were just so solid. That is a
great place to start this race.”
Kyle
Larson was sixth ahead of Ryan Newman, Jamie McMurray, Kurt Busch,
Danica Patrick, Clint Bowyer and Paul Menard comprised the remainder of
the top-12.
Team
Penske ended the second session in reversal roles with Clint Bowyer,
Kurt Busch and Kyle Larson inside the top-five. In the first knock-out
qualifying session, Joey Logano
led the way ahead of Danica Patrick, Jeff Gordon, Brad Keselowski and
Jamie McMurray to close out the top-five. The intensity roared from near
the bubble line, which shifted within the last couple minutes of the
session.
Jimmie
Johnson in his No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet SS went out late and bumped
himself inside the top-24, but a rally by Carl Edwards knocked the
reigning champion out. He’ll start
25th.
The other surprise?
Two-time
2014 winner Dale Earnhardt Jr. only maneuvered the 29th quickest lap
overall in his No. 88 Chevrolet SS after three runs.
No one failed to qualify for the seventeenth race of the season.
The
Quaker State 400 presented by Advance Auto Parts will air live on TNT
tomorrow (Saturday) night, June 28 beginning at 7:30 p.m.
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