Bank of America 500 Qualifying - Stewart on the Pole
Bank of America 500 Qualifying
Date: Oct. 13, 2011
Event: Bank of America 500 Qualifying (Round 31 of 36)
Series: NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
Location: Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway (1.5-mile oval)
Pole Winner: Tony Stewart of Stewart-Haas Racing (28.131 seconds at 191.959 mph)
SHR Lineup: Tony Stewart (1st, 28.131 seconds at 191.959 mph)
Ryan Newman (6th, 28.186 seconds at 191.584 mph)
Tony Stewart, driver of the No. 14 Mobil 1/Office Depot Chevrolet Impala, led the two-car Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) contingent in time trials Thursday night at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway by qualifying on the pole for Saturday night’s Bank of America 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race. Stewart turned a lap of 28.131 seconds at 191.959 mph on the 1.5-mile oval.
It was Stewart’s 13th pole in 459 career Sprint Cup races, his first of the season, his first in 26 starts at Charlotte and his first since July 30, 2010 when he qualified on the pole at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway, 46 races ago.
“That was a pretty cool lap. It’s definitely a good start to the weekend,” said Stewart, who has one point-paying win at Charlotte (October 2003) and one win in the non-points NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race (2009). “The first run we made today was in race trim, and that was the best balance we had taken off the truck here in a long time. Darian (Grubb, crew chief) thought the pace was really good, and I felt comfortable in the car, so it definitely got the day started off on the right foot.
“When we started doing our qualifying runs, we were pretty decent in speed, too. I’ve had runs here in qualifying where I’ve missed it and missed my marks doing something to try to gain that extra time that you think you’re going to need and made mistakes. Tonight I tried to duplicate my lap that I ran in practice and just get a little bit more out of it versus trying to get that big chunk like we’ve tried to in the past. It’s definitely been a good start to the weekend.”
This is the ninth pole for SHR, with Ryan Newman delivering the last one on Sept. 23 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, three races ago.
Newman, driver of the No. 39 Cookies for Kids’ Cancer/Gene Haas Foundation Chevrolet Impala for SHR, will start sixth after turning a lap of 28.186 seconds at 191.584 mph.
“I didn’t get the lap that I wanted. The car bottomed out pretty good in (turns) one and two. But really proud that we picked up a lot of speed, something we’ve been lacking here the last couple of weeks,” said Newman, who has four top-fives and seven top-10s in 21 career points-paying starts at Charlotte. “It was a good effort for the guys and we’ll see what we can do. Proud to represent the Gene Haas Foundation and Cookies for Kids’ Cancer.”
Matt Kenseth will start on the outside of row one as he timed in at 28.137 seconds at 191.918 mph, while his Roush Fenway teammate Carl Edwards was third (28.144 seconds at 191.870 mph). A.J. Allmendinger (28.159 seconds at 191.768 mph) and Greg Biffle (28.163 seconds at 191.741 mph) rounded out the top-five.
Forty-six drivers attempted to qualify for the Bank of America 500. Those not making the cut in the 43-car field were Geoffrey Bodine, Scott Speed and Josh Wise.
As far as manufacturers went, Chevrolet took the top spot via Stewart’s pole run. Ford swept the next four spots led by Kenseth. Toyota was the third-fastest make thanks to eighth-quick Kasey Kahne (28.214 seconds at 191.394 mph), while 20th-quick Kurt Busch (28.336 seconds at 190.570 mph) carried the flag for Dodge.
The Bank of America 500 gets underway at 7:30 p.m. EDT on Saturday, Oct. 15 with live coverage provided by ABC beginning with a pre-race show at 7 p.m.
-SHR-
