Qualifying results for Goody's Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville
Martin Truex Jr. might be out of championship contention, but he won the pole for Sunday’s Goody’s Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway, the first of three races in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Round of 8.
Truex turned a pole-winning lap of 98.206 miles per hour to claim the No. 1 starting spot in his No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota.
“There’s no quit in this team,” said Truex after his second consecutive pole and his fifth on the season.
All year long, Truex has been one of the top cars in the field, but an engine failure last week at Talladega Superspeedway knocked him out of the Chase.
Still, he will be one of the cars to watch in the race.
“It’s no guarantee that we’ll race well on Sunday, but it’s definitely a nice advantage if you have a good race car to be able to make up stops on pit road and not have to worry about getting blocked in and all those things,” said Truex. “It’s a definite advantage and hopefully we can have a good car to take advantage of it.”
Last week’s winner at Talladega, Joey Logano, qualified on the outside of Row 1 in his Team Penske Ford.
Completing the top five were Jimmie Johnson in a Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, AJ Allmendinger in a JTG Daugherty Chevy and Johnson’s teammate, Chase Elliott.
“Glad that it worked out that is a great starting spot, great pit road pick,” said Johnson. “Definitely doing things and headed in the right direction.”
Allmendinger, who has a pair of runner-up finishes here, was pleased to qualify on the outside of Row 2.
“The last run made the right adjustments and I thought I got everything I could out of it,” said Allmendinger. “The good thing is I feel good that we can go fastest on our last run.”
During the first of three rounds of qualifying, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. spun out going into Turn 1 and backed his Roush Fenway Racing Ford into the wall. Stenhouse will have to go to a backup for the race.
Later in the session, Austin Dillon tagged the wall in his Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet.
With the field for the Martinsville race now set, there will be two rounds of Sprint Cup practice on Saturday, the first coming at 9 a.m. ET, with Happy Hour at noon.
If one of the eight remaining Chase drivers wins Sunday’s race, he will be locked into the one-race, winner-take-all championship race at Homestead-Miami Speedway. In that race, the best finisher of the final four drivers will be crowned the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion.
See below for full results from Friday's session:
