Sears Point: Kurt Busch qualifying report

Busch Qualifies 27th for Sunday's Toyota/Save Mart 350

SONOMA, Calif. (June 19, 2009) - Miller Lite Dodge driver Kurt Busch will start Sunday's Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway from the 27th starting spot after turning in a qualifying lap of 77.615 seconds (92.302 mph) in today's time trial session on the sprawling California Wine Country road course.

"We were struggling in practice and decided to throw the kitchen sink at it," said Busch, who was 26th fastest on the practice speed chart with a lap of 77.804 seconds (92.078 mph). "We just couldn't find the forward bite that we needed. We changed shocks and springs - made numerous changes after practice - and really went for it.

"I was charging it really hard on our lap and got off the track a little in (Turn) 2 and that scrubbed a lot of the speed off," said Busch. "We picked up about two tenths (of a second) from practice, but so did everybody else. It'll be the big quest for forward bite here in tomorrow's practices and we'll give it all we can in the effort to get our Miller Lite Dodge race-ready for Sunday."

Brian Vickers, who has been having great qualifying efforts seemingly everywhere this year, continued that trend by claiming the top spot here this afternoon. Out 24th in the order of 47 drivers, Vickers turned in a lap of 76.475 seconds (93.678 mph) to claim his second pole in a row, fourth of the season and ninth overall.

Kyle Busch (76.690 seconds/93.415 mph) took the second spot, with Marcos Ambrose (76.918/93.138) third, Tony Stewart (77.000/93.039) fourth and Kasey Kahne (77.040/92.991) fifth. Martin Truex, Jr., Ryan Newman, Elliott Sadler, Boris Said and Matt Kenseth rounded out Friday's top-10 qualifiers.

Sam Hornish Jr. led the Penske Racing trio in qualifying Friday, taking the 18th starting spot with a lap of 77.325 seconds (92.648 mph). Busch will start 27th and David Stremme 39th. Hornish had been 17th in practice, while Stremme was 39th.

-credit: pr