NASCAR: Talladega Qualifying Results, Martin Truex Jr. On Pole
On Saturday the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series took to the track to qualify for Sunday’s race at Talladega. Reed Sorenson turned some heads with his first-round speed but it was Martin Truex Jr. taking the pole with his second-round speed.
The surprise of the opening round of qualifying came from Reed Sorenson when he ran a first-round lap faster than the pole-winning lap at Talladega by Chase Elliott earlier this season. The lap time of 49.324 seconds was easily close to a second better than many of the other cars that ran in the opening round.
Later during qualifying it was confirmed that Sorenson ran a qualifying setup that would not sustain race conditions and that is why he was able to turn the lap that he did. For Sorenson, making the race was more important than losing time during the race to reverse the setup changes from qualifying.
Midway through the first round several storylines opened up. It was announced that the JGR (sans Carl Edwards) cars were heading back to inspection do to an issues with visual inspection on pit road. It was also announced that the No. 78 machine had parts confiscated by NASCAR prior to qualifying.
The first round ended with Greg Biffle pushing into the top-12 which meant that all three Roush cars qualified in the top-12, quite an impressive showing for that team.
In the second round it was once again all eyes on Sorenson but he was not able to replicate his first round speed. In the end it was Martin Truex Jr. taking the pole for the race on Sunday at Talladega.
Unofficial Talladega Starting Grid
Did Not Qualify: David Gilliland
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