NSCS: Jamie McMurray plays spoiler en route to Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 pole

While the focus is on the Chase for the Sprint Cup, there have been drivers who have been trying to play spoiler. One of those is Jamie McMurray as he has ran up front throughout the Chase so far. His good runs came to a top as he would top the qualifying chart on Friday afternoon at Martinsville Speedway, scoring the Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 pole. McMurray’s 1th career pole came courtesy of a lap time of 18.954 seconds. It also marks McMurray’s second pole of the season.

McMurray has been running stronger over the course of the second half of the season than the first, though ran solidly throughout the first half as well. McMurray attributes that to the effort of everyone on his team.

“Its Keith working and adjusting on the cars, its all the changes, and making our way to these tracks for the second time around is working out well for Keith and I,” he commented.

Track record holder Joey Logano would qualify second, 0.057 seconds off of McMurray’s quick time. Logano felt that he lost the pole as a result of a small slip up in turns three and four.

“I felt like one and two was good, the car did what I wanted to do. Got into three hard, waited in the center before going off,” he commented. “Starting upfront is something that you always want to do here. It’s a good starting spot for us on our way to stay out of trouble.”

Chase contender Matt Kenseth would qualify third, commenting that he was surprised as to how quick he was.

“The second run – I got all I could in there and just didn’t have it; probably could’ve done a little better that second run,” he commented. “It’s a good starting spot for us.”

Tony Stewart qualified fourth, followed by Chasers Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski.

‘If we qualify well, that’s normally a good sign for us,” Keselowski commented. ‘Looking forward to tomorrow and seeing whether we can get it working well for the race, where it counts. There’s a lot of concerns – restarts are crazy here and it seems if you can get the wrong line, it can make for a long day.”

Jimmie Johnson qualified seventh, followed by Kyle Busch, Chaser Ryan Newman, Kurt Busch, Chaser Carl Edwards and Clint Bowyer.

“I think we could’ve been a solid sixth or seventh, but I’m also aware that this is statistically better than we qualify here so I think we have a good car for Sunday,” Edwards said. “We have a shot at having a good run. I went faster on my first lap on any of my first laps, got down in one a little deep and it screwed it up. I think that lap would’ve been good for seventh or eighth, I think.”

Jeff Gordon and Kevin Harvick would both miss the top 12 as Gordon qualified 13th, while Harvick popped the car off the wall en route to qualifying 33rd.