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Kyle Busch Takes the Pole at Pocono
By Dino Oberto
Starting Lineup
(Long Pond, PA 6-4-10) Kyle Busch will make his 200th career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series start from the pole position in Sunday’s Gillette Fusion ProGlide 500 Presented by Target.
Busch, who comes to Pocono second in points, toured the 2.5-mile tri-oval at 169.48 mph. This was his second pole of 2010 as he also took top honors at Richmond. This was his sixth career pole.
Busch was the 31st car to take time on a very warm afternoon in Long Pond.
“It was a really good lap for us. Seeing the cloud cover come over right before we went out, I knew the track would pick up some grip. The way lap times were picking up from practice, there was bunch of guys who picked up as much as a full second in time so we had to give it all she had and I had a good lap,” said Busch who was in sixth quick during practice.
“We made some good changes with our qualifying trim and it really helped. There are some things that we’ll keep in there for practice tomorrow and race trim too.”
Busch has never won at Pocono and feels the pole start will lead to his best chance at scoring a victory. He has only one top five finish in ten starts, a fourth which came in the 2005 edition of this event. He has led only two laps at Pocono.
“It’s been documented before that this is a place that I’ve struggled at. Running well here means a lot. It can be very frustrating at this place because it is so long to get around. But when you have a good race car to get around here with than you really look forward to coming into the next corner and doing what you need to do,” added Busch.
Clint Bowyer was second quick at 169.138mph. He had been sitting on the top spot prior to Busch’s run. During practice he appeared to be the odds on choice to run for the pole as he sat atop the charts for most of the session.
“It was a good run. The car was really fast in race trim in right off the bat. Kyle (Busch) caught us off guard. You always come to the track with your best stuff and aim to be the fastest car and we were by far the best so we switched over to our qualifying set-up thinking that would be our best effort and went slower than our race trim. We were able to make some changes and got ourselves a good run,” said Bowyer.
Dale Earnhardt, Jr., had a crowd pleasing third place effort with a lap of 169.067 mph.
Two-time Pocono winner Kurt Busch was fourth at 168.963mph with three-time Pocono champ Denney Hamlin, 168.868mph, fifth.
Defending race winner Tony Stewart, 168.840 mph, Juan Montoya, 186.805mph, June 2008 winner Kasey Kahne, 168.713mph, July 2003 victor Ryan Newman, 168.669mph and Jeff Gordon, a four time winner here , 168.612mph, rounded out the top ten.
Point leader Kevin Harvick qualified 22nd at 167.529mph. Defending Sprint Cup Champion Jimmie Johnson, who was fastest in practice, had a disappointing 25th place showing at 167.392mph.
Failing to make the race were Terry Cook and Robby Gordon. Ted Musgrave was driving in place of Gordon who was competing in an off-road event elsewhere.
Mikey Kile followed up on his leading performance in ARCA Racing Series practice Friday to win the pole for the Messina Wildlife Animal Stopper 200.
Kile will start from the pole for the first time in his career after a lap of 167.069mph in the No. 25 Toyota positioned nearly a full second and almost three miles per hour faster over the second position starter Frank Kimmel.
Kile's Venturini Motorsports car is the same one driven by NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Joey Logano to victory at the triangular oval one year ago.
The ARCA race is slated to go green at 1:00 p.m. Saturday.
Final practice takes place Saturday morning beginning at 10:00 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. and with Happy Hour set from 11:20 a.m. to 12: 20 p.m. The green flag waves for the race on at 1:00 p.m. Sunday.
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