Photo Credit: Noel Lanier
At the end of qualifying for the Sprint Showdown, it’d be Paul Menard snatching the pole with a lap of 28.470 seconds, just two thousandths quicker than Greg Biffle.
“We concentrated on short run speed in practice and I felt we had a better race car than a qualifying car,” he commented. “Hopefully it goes green all the way and we lead all the laps. We have a great racecar but ya never know as all hell can break loose here.”
The Sprint Showdown is a race set for those not qualified yet for the Sprint All-Star race to qualify their way in.
The Sprint Showdown will consist of two segments at 20 laps a piece. Each of the segment winners will transfer to the All-Star race. Following the Showdown, NASCAR will announce the Sprint Fan Vote winner, in which that driver will be added to the All-Star race as well. All three of those drivers will get to take part in All-Star race qualifying tomorrow evening before the All-Star race.
Biffle was quickest in the first round of qualifying at 28.427 seconds, and was second quickest in practice earlier today.
“I think (crew chief) Matt (Fushia) and the guys talked about what they’d do for tonight and we have a lot of confidence,” he said. “It has a lot of speed. Man, I just wish that I wouldn’t had to back out of the gas in one and two. That probably cost us the top spot. We know there’s a handful of guys missing, but it’s nice to qualify up front and have a good run.”
David Ragan would qualify third in his third race with Michael Waltrip Racing, followed by Clint Bowyer and Austin Dillon; Dillon led practice earlier today.
“Just wanted to be a bit faster there,” Bowyer commented. “Our car has been that way all season, but today, just couldn’t bust the big lap off. I’m really happy with the consistency of it there. it’s going to be fun. Short 20 lap runs. That’s an ‘ol Friday night special at Lakeside.”
Kyle Larson would qualify sixth, followed by Martin Truex Jr., Danica Patrick, Casey Mears, Michael McDowell, Chase Elliott and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
“20 lap segments, coming from sixth – it’s about as far back as you can start to win one of these segments,” Larson said. “We’re going to have to go hard. The car wasn’t that good in practice, butt I think we made some good adjustments. The Target Chevrolet showed a lot of speed. Hopefully we can win one of those segments and make it into the big race as it sucks to watch on TV.”
Sam Hornish Jr. would get 13th as he and Dillon ran the same lap in the first round, but Dillon got the tie breaker to advance to round two due to being higher in owner’s points. Justin Allgaier and Trevor Bayne would round out the top-15.
“The big thing is just try to figure out what direction that we want to head,” he said. “There’s a lot that we can do, but at the end of the day, the car just doesn’t have as much turn as we need at this time. The guys are going to keep working hard. I felt like we had a decent car over the long run. 12th is not where I’d want to start, but we’ll go from there as you never know what could happen.”
