Jeff Gordon won the Coors Light Pole Award at Watkins Glen on Saturday with a lap time of 1:08.126, edging out former Glen winner Marcos Ambrose by .173 seconds. Gordon’s fast time on the 2.45-mile New York road course also comes as his 75th career Sprint Cup pole and the 22nd consecutive year that he was won a pole.
Gordon was ecstatic after winning the pole and dedicated it to his son saying, “Luckily I got three shots at it today with this format and that last one was just a really, really solid lap. Today’s my son’s birthday so this is just an awesome way to give him a birthday present.”
He hasn’t won at the track since 2001 and Gordon commented about the significance of starting from the pole at Watkins Glen.
“It’s very important here,” he said, “and it’s really, I think, contributed to our lack of success the last several years here. You know it’s been a while since we’ve won here and really been in contention to win and a lot of it has had to do with qualifying.”
“Qualifying has really been what’s hurting us here at Watkins Glen, and I blame myself mainly,” Gordon said. “I’m so happy today to get three shots at it. I think that really made a big difference.”
Gordon credited the new qualifying format for giving him the opportunity to put together the winning lap.
“The first lap I did okay, but I got held up a little bit coming back to the checkers, and the second one was a really good lap and got us into the top 12 and I just tried to do the same things in that last lap,” Gordon said. “I thought that it was about the same as what I ran before. I didn’t think it was going to be that much better, but, wow, what a lap.”
Ambrose broke the track qualifying record in Round One of qualifying, with a lap time of 1:08.113 but was unable to best Gordon in the final round.
“He’s a fantastic road racer, and I have watched a lot of races here where he dominated,” Ambrose said. “He’s having a standout year. You can’t discount anybody out there. Anyone in that top-12, if they had gotten the pole, I wouldn’t have been surprised.”
Jimmie Johnson qualified third with a lap time of 1:08.389 and said that he had a “very fast race car,” but they had to make some changes to the set-up for qualifying.
“We unloaded strong and found something really good for race trim. It didn’t work so well yesterday for us in qualifying trim. We were still eighth on the board, but a pretty good gap from where we were up to the front. The No. 88 car had a great lap so we really copied the No. 88’s qualifying set-up. It had a lot of speed. So a big thank you to Steve Letarte and Dale, Jr. for a fast set-up under the car, that extra little bit, to get us up there in the top five.”
Kevin Harvick qualified fourth followed by Kurt Busch to round out the top five.
Round One began with several drivers, including Ambrose, Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski, Carl Edwards, Johnson, and Gordon electing to wait several minutes on pit road while the rest of the field took to the track.
A.J. Allmendinger, who was fastest in Practice Two, took the first spot early in qualifying Round One, until Ambrose jumped in front about eight minutes in.
Early in Round One, a minor incident occurred during Kyle Busch’s cool-down lap when Kevin Harvick, running a qualifying attempt, was held up by the much slower Busch. Harvick briefly drove alongside Busch and expressed his disapproval by gesturing to Busch out his window. Soon after, Harvick’s radio communication revealed that he had been sent onto the track at a bad time, and that his crew chief and spotter should have waited for a clear track. Harvick’s misstep was corrected when he returned to the track later in Round One and grabbed the second spot.
Late-round position shifting left Brian Vickers with the last spot in the advancing group, edging out Tony Stewart in 13th place by .004 seconds.
The end of Round One produced a top five of Ambrose, Harvick, Allmendinger, Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Edwards, this season’s first road race winner at Sonoma, and Kyle Busch missed the cut-off group and will start 16th and 19th, respectively.
Ambrose jumped to the lead opening the second round, followed by Allmendinger and Harvick. With three minutes left, Jeff Gordon grabbed the lead that would solidify his pole award.
Johnson slipped into third place and Kurt Busch moved into fourth shortly before time expired.
With under a minute left, Ambrose and Allmendinger took to the track for another try at the pole, but only Allmendinger crossed the line in time to clock a lap. He qualified sixth.
1. Jeff Gordon
2. Marcos Ambrose
3. Jimmie Johnson
4. Kevin Harvick
5. Kurt Busch
6. A.J. Allmendinger
7. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
8. Matt Kenseth
9. Brad Keselowski
10. Ryan Newman
11. Joey Logano
12. Brian Vickers
13. Tony Stewart
14. Jamie McMurray
15. Justin Allgaier
16. Carl Edwards
17. Denny Hamlin
18. Cole Whitt
19. Kyle Busch
20. Paul Menard
21. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
22. Casey Mears
23. Kyle Larson
24. Clint Bowyer
25. Martin Truex Jr.
26. David Ragan
27. Aric Almirola
28. Greg Biffle
29. Michael McDowell
30. Kasey Kahne
31. Austin Dillon
32. Nelson Piquet Jr.
33. David Gilliland
34. Boris Said
35. Ryan Truex
36. Alex Bowman
37. Josh Wise
38. Alex Kennedy
39. Reed Sorenson
40. Joe Nemechek
41. Landon Cassill
42. Michael Annett
43. Danica Patrick
