The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and Xfinity Series qualifying sessions originally scheduled for Friday afternoon at Atlanta Motor Speedway were canceled due to rain.
"It was close. I probably didn't have quite enough confidence on the first lap that I should have had in it. The guys did a great job. Not doing a qualifying lap in practice, we just worked on our race stuff and we were kind of winging it right there as to what we thought was right and it worked out okay."
"It’s great to get a pole. We’re in a little bit different colors this week with Unifirst on our Camaro. So, I’m excited to grab them a pole. It’s always a good thing when you can put down a fast lap."
Maybe it was my low expectations for races at Texas, but Sunday's O'Reilly Auto Parts 500 was good. The field didn't get exponentially stretched out as the race progressed, and the leader didn't simply pull away from the car in second.
Toyota Racing Post-Qualifying Quotes-Martin Truex Jr.-"I’d say 13th is a pretty good starting spot for the day we’ve had. We really didn’t get a crack at anything in practice and we didn’t have much time to get ready for qualifying and we were pretty far off. Made some good gains for sure. I wish we could have ran again. I definitely feel like I could pick up some more, we were pretty tight. We’ll start 13th and get to work tomorrow."
Kyle Busch will have a front row seat when the field takes the green flag for Sunday's Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race after qualifying with the fastest speed of 184.652 mph at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Driving the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, Busch nabbed the top spot from Ryan Newman (184.419 mph) and clinched his first career pole at the iconic 1.5-mile oval.
The field for Sunday’s race, as per the NASCAR rule book, was determined by the most recent practice session. Harvick was the fastest on Friday’s lone Sprint Cup practice session and will thus start on the pole.
While Daytona was good, Atlanta was tolerable. I wonder, if I was a transient type flipping channels, how long would I have lingered on the action beaming in from Georgia?
