Martin Truex Jr. wins Cup pole at Kentucky in bid to repeat

Truex, who won last year’s race at Kentucky Speedway, turned the fastest average lap speed (188.890 mph) in the final round of Friday’s qualifying to claim the pole for Saturday night’s Quaker State 400.

Truex’s fellow Toyota driver, Erik Jones, ended up second, Kevin Harvick was third, Brad Keselowski was fourth and Kyle Busch completed the top-five.

The pole is fourth this season for Truex and his No. 78 Furniture Row Racing team and the 19th of his career.

Truex, who was fastest in Rounds 2 and 3, had spent the vast majority of Friday’s practices running race set-up and never got a solid qualifying run completed.

“We really had to guess quit a bet for the (qualifying) set-up for here,” Truex said. “The first round I was a little bit off – some of it was driver and some of it was car.

“We did what we always do, we put our heads together and came up with a plan and we stepped it up. It feels good. Starting up front is key, the first pit stall is good for here and hopefully we can back up what we did last year tomorrow night.”

Rounding out the top 12 starters were Paul Menard, Ryan Blaney, Clint Bowyer, Kurt Busch, Ryan Newman, Daniel Suarez and Aric Almirola.

Round 2

Truex rocketed to the top of the speed chart in the second round with an average lap speed of 188.976 mph – which ended up as the fastest lap recorded on the day.

Kyle Busch ended up second (188.403 mph) and Almirola was third (188.107 mph). Keselowski and Jones completed the top-five.

Also advancing to the final round were Newman, Bowyer, Kurt Busch, Harvick, Blaney, Menard and Suarez.

Newman was the only Chevrolet driver to secure a position in the final round.

Among those who failed to advance were Austin Dillon, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Alex Bowman, Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson, William Byron and Joey Logano.

“We unloaded pretty off today. At least we’re going in the right direction,” said Bowman, who will start 15th. “We need to keep getting better, we can’t get worse.

None of the four Hendrick Motorsports drivers advanced to the final round.

Round 1

Harvick led the way in the first round of qualifying with an average lap speed of 187.859 mph.

Jones was second-fastest (187.676 mph) and Austin Dillon was third (187.611 mph). Keselowski and Menard completed the top-five.

Among those who failed to advance to Round 2 were Darrell Wallace Jr., Jimmie Johnson, Kasey Kahne and Ty Dillon.

“I think we have a really good car for the race. We just need to fine-tune for the long-run,” Dillon said.

Wallace had been fast in practice Friday afternoon. Johnson and his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports team has struggled all day. Johnson was the only HMS car not to advance to Round 2.

The first 15-minute session began with several cars still needing to clear inspection, including J.J. Yeley, Elliott, Matt DiBenedetto, Denny Hamlin, Timmy Hill, Jesse Little and Alex Bowman.

Elliott made it out on the track with just over five minutes remaining in the session and ended up 16th-fastest.

Hamlin, Hill, Little and DiBenedetto did not make it out on the track and will all have to start the race from the rear of the field.

Cla	#	Driver	Manufacturer	Time	Gap	Mph
1	78	Martin Truex Jr.	Toyota	28.588		188.890
2	20	Erik Jones	Toyota	28.611	0.023	188.739
3	4	Kevin Harvick	Ford	28.640	0.052	188.547
4	2	Brad Keselowski	Ford	28.664	0.076	188.390
5	18	Kyle Busch	Toyota	28.692	0.104	188.206
6	21	Paul Menard	Ford	28.705	0.117	188.121
7	12	Ryan Blaney	Ford	28.732	0.144	187.944
8	14	Clint Bowyer	Ford	28.770	0.182	187.696
9	41	Kurt Busch	Ford	28.780	0.192	187.630
10	31	Ryan Newman	Chevrolet	28.866	0.278	187.071
11	19	Daniel Suarez	Toyota	28.877	0.289	187.000
12	10	Aric Almirola	Ford	28.895	0.307	186.884
13	3	Austin Dillon	Chevrolet	28.851	0.263	187.169
14	17	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	Ford	28.866	0.278	187.071
15	88	Alex Bowman	Chevrolet	28.935	0.347	186.625
16	9	Chase Elliott	Chevrolet	28.947	0.359	186.548
17	6	Matt Kenseth	Ford	28.951	0.363	186.522
18	42	Kyle Larson	Chevrolet	28.979	0.391	186.342
19	22	Joey Logano	Ford	28.981	0.393	186.329
20	37	Chris Buescher	Chevrolet	29.004	0.416	186.181
21	24	William Byron	Chevrolet	29.010	0.422	186.143
22	1	Jamie McMurray	Chevrolet	29.050	0.462	185.886
23	34	Michael McDowell	Ford	29.116	0.528	185.465
24	38	David Ragan	Ford	29.234	0.646	184.716
25	43	Darrell Wallace Jr.	Chevrolet	29.263	0.675	184.533
26	47	A.J. Allmendinger	Chevrolet	29.271	0.683	184.483
27	48	Jimmie Johnson	Chevrolet	29.281	0.693	184.420
28	13	Ty Dillon	Chevrolet	29.533	0.945	182.846
29	95	Kasey Kahne	Chevrolet	29.582	0.994	182.543
30	15	Ross Chastain	Chevrolet	29.805	1.217	181.178
31	72	Corey Lajoie	Chevrolet	29.936	1.348	180.385
32	23	J.J. Yeley	Toyota	30.022	1.434	179.868
33	00	Landon Cassill	Chevrolet	30.150	1.562	179.104
34	51	B.J. McLeod	Chevrolet	30.357	1.769	177.883
35	99	Garrett Smithley	Chevrolet	30.649	2.061	176.188
36	11	Denny Hamlin	Toyota	0.000		0.000
37	32	Matt DiBenedetto	Ford	0.000		0.000
38	07	Jesse Little	Chevrolet	0.000		0.000
39	66	Timmy Hill	Toyota	0.000		0.000