Starting lineup for second Chase race at New Hampshire
Carl Edwards is NASCAR’s new King of Fridays, especially in New England.
Edwards and his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota took the pole for Sunday’s Bad Boy Off Road 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, site of the second race in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
In qualifying, Edwards ran a best lap of 135.453 miles per hour, good enough for his third pole in the last four races at the 1.058-mile New Hampshire track. It was Edwards’ series-high sixth pole of the year and the 22nd of his career.
“These cars are great,” said Edwards. “These Toyotas are really fast. This is a really fun place to run when you’re car’s that good.”
And the speed came at the right time.
“This is what we needed,” Edwards said. “We didn’t run well at Chicago. That was very frustrating. So to come here, start on the pole, get a great pit stall — hopefully we can turn this into a good race.”
Qualifying second was Martin Truex Jr. of Furniture Row Racing, who won last weekend’s Chase opener at Chicagoland Speedway. Truex ran 135.212 mph in the final lap.
Truex was followed by Ryan Newman in a Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, the Hendrick Motorsports Chevy of Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin in a second JGR Toyota.
“To come to a short track and qualify well is pretty awesome,” said Johnson.
Surprisingly, none of the four cars from the powerhouse Stewart-Haas Racing team made it out of Round 2, with Kurt Busch qualifying 13th, Kevin Harvick 19th, Tony Stewart 22nd and Danica Patrick 24th. All of the SHR drivers except Patrick are championship contenders.
“We just made a couple of changes and got really loose at exit,” said Busch.
Two Chase drivers failed to make it out of the first of three rounds of qualifying: Chris Buescher qualified 28th, one position ahead of Austin Dillon.
The qualifying session was not without drama. When it began at 4:45 p.m. ET, a number of cars had not passed thru NASCAR’s technical inspection. But in the end, they all made it through and were able to put down official qualifying attempts.
In a pre-race interview, Scott Miller, NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition, said the inspection delay was caused by teams pushing the limits and failing inspection multiple times.
Check out Sunday's row-by-row starting lineup as determined by Friday's qualifying results below.
