Qualifying at Kansas took place under cool and cloudy conditions with wind gusts that reached up to 25 mph. At the end of qualifying, Greg Biffle’s Sherwin Williams Ford from Roush Fenway Racing was sitting on the pole with a lap of 174.887 MPH. His teammate Carl Edwards will start outside the front row in the Aflac Ford.
[media-credit id=2 align=”alignright” width=”225″][/media-credit]“Well, it was a really good lap. I think what I really would rather talk about is how slow we were when we unloaded off the truck. It was quite amazing. We were 35th or 37th when we unloaded off the truck today.” Biffle said. “We made about six qualifying runs and the last one was pretty dang good and they changed a bunch more stuff on it for the real one. The car was really good.”
The pole for the Hollywood Casino 400 was the 8th of Biffle’s career and his best start in 11 tries at the mile and a half track.
Edwards commented he had never started this far up at Kansas so he was excited. Edwards said “How you qualify is not indicative of how you are going to run in the race.” But he stated that he was excited to be starting so far up in the field.
It is Roush Fenway’s eighth Sprint Cup pole in 2011, with all four of the team’s Cup drivers having won multiple poles this season. It also marked Roush Fenway’s second Sprint Cup pole at Kansas and its first since 2005.
Kyle Busch who starts 3rd tomorrow stated that he hoped to have a much better race than he had last time here at Kansas. He also stated that he was happy to see Clint Bowyer added to the Toyota family.
“We were looking for a little bit more than that, but certainly the pace is a little bit slower than we expected qualifying to be. So far so good. We’ve dodged a couple bullets. The M&M’s Camry unloaded good.” Busch said.
Austin Dillon qualified 26th to make his first start in the Sprint Cup Series.
“Thinking about it going up there, I wasn’t nervous all the way up until it was time to go. And then it’s just like you think of every little thing that could go wrong. We were fast enough in practice to get in really fast. That time we actually picked up some more speed, but I think if I would have calmed down a little bit it would have helped my lap.” Dillon said.
The field is separated by only 0.86 of a second.
Starting Lineup | |||||
Hollywood Casino 400, Kansas Speedway | |||||
http://www.speedwaymedia.com/Cup/qual.php?race=30 | |||||
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Pos. | No. | Driver | Make | Speed | Time |
=========================================== | |||||
1 | 16 | Greg Biffle | Ford | 174.887 | 30.877 |
2 | 99 | Carl Edwards | Ford | 174.571 | 30.933 |
3 | 18 | Kyle Busch | Toyota | 174.447 | 30.955 |
4 | 17 | Matt Kenseth | Ford | 174.436 | 30.957 |
5 | 4 | Kasey Kahne | Toyota | 174.413 | 30.961 |
6 | 27 | Paul Menard | Chevrolet | 174.317 | 30.978 |
7 | 11 | Denny Hamlin | Toyota | 174.222 | 30.995 |
8 | 56 | Martin Truex Jr. | Toyota | 174.126 | 31.012 |
9 | 5 | Mark Martin | Chevrolet | 174.092 | 31.018 |
10 | 24 | Jeff Gordon | Chevrolet | 174.048 | 31.026 |
11 | 39 | Ryan Newman | Chevrolet | 174.031 | 31.029 |
12 | 2 | Brad Keselowski | Dodge | 174.02 | 31.031 |
13 | 6 | David Ragan | Ford | 173.863 | 31.059 |
14 | 29 | Kevin Harvick | Chevrolet | 173.617 | 31.103 |
15 | 83 | Brian Vickers | Toyota | 173.605 | 31.105 |
16 | 78 | Regan Smith | Chevrolet | 173.527 | 31.119 |
17 | 22 | Kurt Busch | Dodge | 173.327 | 31.155 |
18 | 88 | Dale Earnhardt Jr. | Chevrolet | 173.238 | 31.171 |
19 | 48 | Jimmie Johnson | Chevrolet | 173.182 | 31.181 |
20 | 20 | Joey Logano | Toyota | 173.171 | 31.183 |
21 | 9 | Marcos Ambrose | Ford | 173.066 | 31.202 |
22 | 43 | A.J. Allmendinger | Ford | 172.944 | 31.224 |
23 | 14 | Tony Stewart | Chevrolet | 172.933 | 31.226 |
24 | 33 | Clint Bowyer | Chevrolet | 172.889 | 31.234 |
25 | 46 | Scott Speed | Ford | 172.866 | 31.238 |
26 | 198 | Austin Dillon | Chevrolet | 172.723 | 31.264 |
27 | 0 | David Reutimann | Toyota | 172.607 | 31.285 |
28 | 55 | J.J. Yeley | Ford | 172.568 | 31.292 |
29 | 1 | Jamie McMurray | Chevrolet | 172.535 | 31.298 |
30 | 34 | David Gilliland | Ford | 172.43 | 31.317 |
31 | 31 | Jeff Burton | Chevrolet | 172.397 | 31.323 |
32 | 30 | David Stremme | Chevrolet | 172.177 | 31.363 |
33 | 47 | Bobby Labonte | Toyota | 172.161 | 31.366 |
34 | 42 | Juan Montoya | Chevrolet | 171.936 | 31.407 |
35 | 71 | Andy Lally* | Ford | 171.86 | 31.421 |
36 | 38 | Travis Kvapil | Ford | 171.521 | 31.483 |
37 | 13 | Casey Mears | Toyota | 171.429 | 31.5 |
38 | 36 | Dave Blaney | Chevrolet | 170.989 | 31.581 |
39 | 7 | Reed Sorenson | Dodge | 170.837 | 31.609 |
40 | 66 | Michael McDowell | Toyota | 170.53 | 31.666 |
41 | 51 | Landon Cassill | Chevrolet | 170.482 | 31.675 |
42 | 32 | Mike Bliss+ | Ford | 170.132 | 31.74 |
43 | 87 | Joe Nemechek | Toyota | 170.148 | 31.737 |