Jeff Gordon captured the pole for Saturday nights Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway with a lap of 191.544 mph (28.192 secs).
This will continue his streak of at least one pole in 18 consecutive seasons.
“We’ve had a weird year when it comes to qualifying this DuPont Chevrolet this year. We’ve had times when I thought we really had a shot at it but got knocked off and then other times we’ve just been stuck right in 15th or 16th.” Gordon said. “That was just a great effort by a great team.”
Carl Edwards qualified second, A.J. Allmendinger third, Mark Martin fourth and Paul Menard qualified fifth.
“I was just telling them that I’ve got my own billboard up there in turns one and two, so you have to run well when you’ve got your own billboard. We were close to getting the first spot, but that was a really good lap.” Edwards said.
“It was ok. I bit off a little more than I could chew in turn one. I was uncharacteristically optimistic about turn one so I left my foot on the floor a little too long before I got there.” Martin said.
Kyle Busch qualified sixth. “Charlotte’s my favorite place to race at. I’ve yet to win a Cup race here, but been pretty successful in Nationwide and Truck racing. Tonight’s qualifying effort was good. Wished it was a little bit better than that, but we’ll take what we got there with a good, solid top-10 effort. We’ll go on into the race and we can see the front from there.” Busch said.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. qualified eighth. “We were good off the trailer and it felt like we could run a good lap.” Earnhardt Jr. said.
Last years race winner and current series points leader Jimmie Johnson starts 10th.
