[media-credit name=”Steven Iles” align=”alignright” width=”225″]
[/media-credit]Jeff Gordon grabbed the Coors Light pole with a speed of 178.248 MPH (53.723 secs) on Saturday at Talladega Superspeedway.
“It was a great effort by the Drive To End Hunger Chevrolet, the whole team, Alan (Gustafson, crew chief) and the guys. We didn’t know what we could run because we didn’t make any qualifying runs. Obviously feeling pretty good about it right now.” Gordon said.
This was Gordon’s 70th career pole broke a tie for third place on the career list with Cale Yarborough and now only trails drivers Richard Petty (123) and David Pearson (113).
Hendrick Motorsports teammates also sweep of the top four spots for Sunday’s Aaron’s 499.
“This is as good as we could possibly ask for,” Gordon said. “If we could write the script, we couldn’t have written it any better. I had no idea what to expect and neither did the team. But we certainly didn’t expect to go out and qualify 1, 2, 3, 4 like that. It feels great. I’m not sure where that came from, except for great note-sharing among the teams and hard work.”
Jimmie Johnson qualified second, Mark Martin third, Dale Earnhardt Jr. fourth and Paul Menard qualified fifth.
“It’s an incredible engineering feat to be able to put the speed together with every single component – horsepower, aero, chassis, the whole thing,” Martin said. “It’s a huge feat by an organization to be able to pull that off.”
Starting Lineup
Aaron’s 499, Talladega Superspeedway
April 15, 2011, Race 8 of 36
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Pos. Driver Make Speed
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1 Jeff Gordon Chevrolet 178.248
2 Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet 177.844
3 Mark Martin Chevrolet 177.807
4 Dale Earnhardt Jr. Chevrolet 177.765
5 Paul Menard Chevrolet 177.702
6 Landon Cassill Chevrolet 177.685
7 David Ragan Ford 177.439
8 Kurt Busch Dodge 177.379
9 Brian Vickers Toyota 177.37
10 Clint Bowyer Chevrolet 177.353
11 Trevor Bayne Ford 177.353
12 Michael Waltrip Toyota 177.317
13 Juan Montoya Chevrolet 177.182
14 David Reutimann Toyota 177.143
15 Bobby Labonte Toyota 177.12
16 A.J. Allmendinger Ford 177.087
17 Greg Biffle Ford 177.074
18 Regan Smith Chevrolet 177.061
19 Brad Keselowski Dodge 177.032
20 Carl Edwards Ford 177.005
21 Jamie McMurray Chevrolet 176.872
22 Joe Nemechek Toyota 176.695
23 Ryan Newman Chevrolet 176.659
24 Marcos Ambrose Ford 176.575
25 Matt Kenseth Ford 176.519
26 Martin Truex Jr. Toyota 176.477
27 Jeff Burton Chevrolet 176.461
28 Travis Kvapil Ford 176.425
29 Denny Hamlin Toyota 176.37
30 Tony Stewart Chevrolet 176.347
31 Kasey Kahne Toyota 176.298
32 Kevin Conway Toyota 176.195
33 Steve Park Chevrolet 176.162
34 Kyle Busch Toyota 175.939
35 Dave Blaney Chevrolet 175.806
36 Joey Logano Toyota 175.41
37 Andy Lally* Ford 175.349
38 Kevin Harvick Chevrolet 175.154
39 David Gilliland Ford 175.134
40 Casey Mears+ Toyota 174.595
41 Terry Labonte+ Ford 174.271
42 Sam Hornish Jr.+ Dodge –
43 Bill Elliott Chevrolet Champion’s Provisional
