Busch, who leads Jeff Burton by 79 points in the series standings, has won three of the last eight points-paying races and finished no worse than 10th in the last five. He had the fastest car for the first 38 laps of last Saturday’s Sprint All-Star Race before encountering engine trouble.
“It’s pretty cool, obviously,” Busch said. “We’ve got a great team at JGR. It’s fun. I can’t say anything but that.
Busch, who just turned 23, said his car was improved significantly from practice and credited his team, headed by crew chief Steve Addington.
“I wasn’t too pleased with the car in practice,” Busch said. “Addington and the guys went to work and made some changes.”
New to Gibbs and new to Toyota this year, Busch, who also claimed a pole at Las Vegas in the third week of the season, has been surprised by how well he and Addington have worked together.
“You never know how quick you’re going to click with a crew chief or anything like that,” Busch said. “I value Steve’s leadership and the success rate that he’s had with everything and the way that he goes about setting up his team.
Biffle, second in the All-Star Race, circled the track in 29.194 seconds but said he had a car fast enough to have claimed the pole.
“I had no idea I missed (the pole) by that little,” he said. “There was a big, huge, white trash bag laying on the race track getting into Turn 1. I knew I couldn’t run it over, so I had to be a little bit lower on the track and I must have turned down in the corner harder and the car just ran up the track. It would have done a flat or a 28.90, easy.”
For all his speed on Thursday, Busch knows it will come down to endurance in Sunday’s 600-mile race, longest on the NASCAR schedule.
Sterling Marlin. A.J. Allmendinger, David Gilliland, Ken Schrader, Patrick Carpentier, J.J. Yeley, Kyle Petty and Johnny Sauter were other drivers to qualify on time. Travis Kvapil and Juan Pablo Montoya will run Sunday thanks to owner’s points.
Jeff Green, Stanton Barrett, Jon Wood, Joe Nemechek and Tony Raines failed to qualify.
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