Tony Stewart won the Coors Light Pole award at the Texas Motor Speedway Saturday afternoon with a qualifying time 27.628 seconds or 195.454 miles per hour. He beat Brad Keselowski’s time of 27.636 at the last second as the third qualifying had expired. Stewart said, “I wasn’t sure I could on” the car was so fast. “This Chevy was fast today.” The pole was Stewart’s 15th of his career and second at Texas.
Stewart-Haas Racing was fast as Kevin Harvick shattered the track record with a qualifying speed of 198.28 mph, the fastest average speed ever recorded at a 1.5 mile track for a NSCAR qualifying session. He was followed by Trevor Bayne, Carl Edwards and Ryan Newman in the first session. Toyota Racing and Joe Gibbs seemed to struggle for time as only Brian Vickers and Denny Hamlin had enough speed to move to that second round. Notable drivers that did not move on to the second round of qualifying (top 24 qualifiers only) were Kasey Kahne (32nd), last year’s pole winner Kyle Busch (29th) and Matt Kenseth (26th). Kenseth said after that first session, “We missed the set-up and the track must have picked up speed after that rain shower earlier.”
The second session, which would only qualify the top twelve for the final session, was lead by the Ford of Greg Biffle who topped the charts at 196.235 mph. He was followed closely by the eventual pole winner Stewart, Harvick, Keselowski and his Penske team mate Joey Logano.
In the last session, which only lasts 5 minutes, Keselowski was quite fast until he was nipped by Stewart.
Line Up (per Nascar):
| POS | Car No | Driver | Best Speed | Best Time | Behind |
|
1 |
14 |
Tony Stewart |
195.454 |
27.628 |
|
|
2 |
2 |
Brad Keselowski |
195.419 |
27.633 |
–0.005 |
|
3 |
4 |
Kevin Harvick |
195.298 |
27.65 |
–0.022 |
|
4 |
16 |
Greg Biffle |
194.7 |
27.735 |
–0.107 |
|
5 |
99 |
Carl Edwards |
194.637 |
27.744 |
–0.116 |
|
6 |
11 |
Denny Hamlin |
194.623 |
27.746 |
–0.118 |
|
7 |
21 |
Trevor Bayne |
194.503 |
27.763 |
–0.135 |
|
8 |
31 |
Ryan Newman |
194.14 |
27.815 |
–0.187 |
|
9 |
9 |
M.Ambrose |
194.056 |
27.827 |
–0.199 |
|
10 |
22 |
Joey Logano |
193.743 |
27.872 |
–0.244 |
|
11 |
41 |
Kurt Busch |
193.126 |
27.961 |
–0.333 |
|
12 |
24 |
Jeff Gordon |
192.089 |
28.112 |
–0.484 |
|
13 |
27 |
Paul Menard |
194.259 |
27.798 |
–0.170 |
|
14 |
42 |
Kyle Larson |
194.084 |
27.823 |
–0.195 |
|
15 |
1 |
J. McMurray |
194.021 |
27.832 |
–0.204 |
|
16 |
48 |
Jimmie Johnson |
194.007 |
27.834 |
–0.206 |
|
17 |
43 |
Aric Almirola |
193.59 |
27.894 |
–0.266 |
|
18 |
78 |
Martin Truex Jr |
193.493 |
27.908 |
–0.280 |
|
19 |
88 |
Dale Earnhardt J |
193.354 |
27.928 |
–0.300 |
|
20 |
3 |
Austin Dillon |
193.154 |
27.957 |
–0.329 |
|
21 |
13 |
Casey Mears |
193.154 |
27.957 |
–0.329 |
|
22 |
51 |
Justin Allgaier |
192.981 |
27.982 |
–0.354 |
|
23 |
55 |
Brian Vickers |
192.768 |
28.013 |
–0.385 |
|
24 |
10 |
Danica Patrick |
192.761 |
28.014 |
–0.386 |
|
25 |
15 |
Clint Bowyer |
194.988 |
27.694 |
–0.066 |
|
26 |
20 |
Matt Kenseth |
194.637 |
27.744 |
–0.116 |
|
27 |
7 |
M. Annett |
194.602 |
27.749 |
–0.121 |
|
28 |
95 |
M. McDowell |
194.581 |
27.752 |
–0.124 |
|
29 |
18 |
Kyle Busch |
194.539 |
27.758 |
–0.130 |
|
30 |
23 |
Alex Bowman |
194.454 |
27.77 |
–0.142 |
|
31 |
17 |
R. Stenhouse Jr |
194.44 |
27.772 |
–0.144 |
|
32 |
5 |
Kasey Kahne |
194.028 |
27.831 |
–0.203 |
|
33 |
47 |
AJ Allmendinger |
193.611 |
27.891 |
–0.263 |
|
34 |
35 |
D. Reutimann |
192.954 |
27.986 |
–0.358 |
|
35 |
77 |
Dave Blaney |
192.52 |
28.049 |
–0.421 |
|
36 |
30 |
P. Kligerman |
192.219 |
28.093 |
–0.465 |
|
37 |
32 |
Travis Kvapil |
192.171 |
28.1 |
–0.472 |
|
38 |
36 |
Reed Sorenson |
191.748 |
28.162 |
–0.534 |
|
39 |
38 |
David Gilliland |
191.625 |
28.18 |
–0.552 |
|
40 |
40 |
Landon Cassill |
191.408 |
28.212 |
–0.584 |
|
41 |
98 |
Josh Wise |
191.232 |
28.238 |
–0.610 |
|
42 |
26 |
Cole Whitt |
189.036 |
28.566 |
–0.938 |
|
43 |
34 |
David Ragan |
187.839 |
28.748 |
–1.120 |
|
