Kurt Busch claims second-straight pole, third-consecutive for Penske
With a lap time of 52.454 seconds, Kurt Busch claimed the pole during qualifying on Saturday for Sunday’s 5-Hour Energy 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Pocono Raceway. It is Busch’s second-consecutive pole, as he also started from the top spot a week ago at Kansas Speedway.
Busch made his qualifying run in a backup car after wrecking his primary car in the second practice session on Friday.
“It’s a testament to the guys building these cars to roll out a backup car and put it on the pole,” Busch said.
Busch’s qualifying lap was the only lap under 52.5 seconds.
NASCAR changed its procedure for determining qualifying order, beginning with this weekend’s race at Pocono. Cars went out for qualifying runs in an order based on their speeds in first practice, as opposed to their average times from both practice sessions. Also, cars were not separated into locked-in and go-or-go-home groups. All 44 cars attempting qualifying were ordered strictly based on first practice speeds, regardless of whether or not they were already locked into the starting field.
With 44 cars attempting qualifying runs to claim 43 spots on Sunday’s starting grid, Mike Skinner was the odd man out and will not race on Sunday after wrecking his car on his second qualifying lap.
“It was a pretty hard hit,” Skinner said. “I got all on the first lap the car would give me.”
Go-or-go-homer, Andy Lally, went out early in the qualifying session, as did pretty much all nine of the cars not locked-in and claimed the provisional pole with a time of 53.138 seconds. He held the top spot through several others’ qualifying runs before being knocked from the top spot by Bobby Labonte, who posted a lap of 53.064 seconds. Lally wound up getting knocked down to the 24th starting position by the end of the qualifying session. Labonte wound up 18th.
J.J. Yeley was the fastest of the go-or-go home cars. His time of 53.115 seconds was good enough for the 22nd starting spot.
Regan Smith claimed the provisional pole with his lap at 52.581 seconds and held the position through much of the qualifying session.
“I don’t think that’s a pole run by any means,” Smith said soon after climbing out of his car.
He was correct in his assessment, as he was knocked down the qualifying order by four drivers, including Busch. Smith will start in the top-five on Sunday, though, from the fifth position.
Paul Menard will start from the second spot after turning in a lap time of 52.502 seconds. Only one driver was left to make a qualifying attempt after Menard made his run -- Carl Edwards, who was the fastest in practice. Edwards’ lap time of 52.614 seconds during qualifying wasn’t enough for a top-five starting spot, though. Instead, he’ll start sixth.
Jeff Gordon will start third and Denny Hamlin fourth.
Photo of Kurt Busch courtesy of NASCAR Media
