Rookie Chase Elliott edges Matt Kenseth for Daytona 500 pole
Feb. 14, 2016
By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Chase Elliott’s rookie campaign just got a jump-start.
Faced
with the daunting prospect of succeeding Jeff Gordon in the No. 24
Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, the 20-year-old Sunoco Rookie of the
Year candidate drove the same
chassis to the same result Gordon accomplished last year—the pole
position for the Feb. 21 Daytona 500 (on FOX at 1 p.m. ET).
In
the money round of qualifying for the Great American Race, Elliott
toured 2.5-mile Daytona International Speedway in 45.845 seconds
(196.314 mph), edging Matt Kenseth (196.036
mph) by .065 seconds for the top starting spot in the NASCAR Sprint Cup
Series opener.
Elliott
and Kenseth are the only drivers whose positions for the Daytona 500
are now locked in. The balance of the field will be filled and ordered
in Thursday night’s 150-mile
Can-Am Duel qualifying races.
“I’ve
never qualified on the front row here before, so that certainly takes
off some pressure for later in the week,” Kenseth said.
“This
is a very, very cool day,” Elliott said after Earnhardt, the last
qualifier, failed to knock him off the pole. “I don’t know that this
opportunity has sunk in yet, much
less sitting on the pole for the Daytona 500.
“So
this is very cool. I think the big thing is just the team and the
Daytona 500 qualifying is about the team guys and the effort they put
into these cars and it’s nothing
special I did. It’s really what kind of work they did this off-season
to make it happen.
“Jeff
(Gordon) knows all about that and I just wanted to give a big thanks to
NAPA Auto Parts and all of our partners at HMS on this No. 24 car. This
is very special and a
great way to start the season.”
Elliott’s
first Sprint Cup pole was a milestone in many other respects. At 20
years, 2 months and 17 days, he is the youngest-ever winner of a Daytona
500 pole, supplanting
Austin Dillon (23 years, 9 months 27 days in 2014).
Should
Elliott win the race next Sunday, he would displace Trevor Bayne as the
youngest winner of the event often referred to as NASCAR’s Super Bowl.
This
was the 10th Daytona 500 pole for Hendrick Motorsports and the third
for the No. 24 Chevrolet, with Gordon winning the previous two in 1999
and 2015. Elliott completed
the fourth father/son combination to win poles for the 500, joining
Richard and Kyle Petty, Bobby and Davey Allison and Dale Earnhardt and
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
In
fact, Earnhardt Jr. was fastest in the first round of Sunday’s
qualifying session, posting a lap at 195.788 mph, but he slipped to
third in the final round and will start
on the outside of the front row in the first Can-Am Duel.
Kyle
Busch posted the fourth fastest lap in the final round and will start
from the second spot in the second Duel. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Jimmie
Johnson were fifth and sixth,
respectively, in the final round.
Notes: Hendrick Motorsports has now won five straight poles on restrictor-plate race tracks…
Ryan
Blaney powered the No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford to a seventh in Sunday’s
time trials. As the fastest “open” car (required to qualify on speed),
he is locked into the Daytona
500…
Matt DiBenedetto, the second fastest of the open cars (and 24th overall) also is locked into the field…
The
No. 78 Furniture Row Toyota of Martin Truex Jr. failed to post a time
after NASCAR inspectors noticed that one of the roof flaps was out of
compliance. The car was on the
five-minute clock at the time and the problem could not be corrected in
time to make a qualifying run. As a consequence, Truex will start from
the rear of the field in the second Can-Am Duel...
The
qualifying times of the Nos. 4 and 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolets,
driven by Kevin Harvick and Brian Vickers, were disallowed after NASCAR
discovered track bar infractions
during post-qualifying inspection. Those cars will start from the rear
in their respective Duels.
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