Five years after starting from the pole position in his first start at Richmond International Raceway, Brian Vickers will lead the Sprint Cup field to the green again.
The Red Bull Racing driver turned a 127.131 mph lap in his No. 83 Toyota Camry to earn the top starting spot for the Russ Friedman 400 presented by Crown Royal, and though he didn’t blister the 0.75-mile oval Friday as he did with a track-record 129.983-mph lap in 2004, Vickers believes he has a better shot at reaching victory lane at RIR this time. USA Today
“We were definitely not where we wanted to be in practice,” Vickers said. “I’m really proud of the Red Bull guys. They made a bunch of great changes within the practices. Unfortunately, we didn’t make those changes until we got into qualifying trim, so we were not able to experiment on the race trim.”
Jeff Gordon qualified 0.05 seconds behind Vickers to grab the outside pole, marking the 11th time he will start on the front row at Richmond.
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“We really didn’t unload off the truck very good,” Gordon said. “We were struggling with the race runs. We finally started to hit on some things, and the car started to come to life, right on our last run. We put in the qualifying trim, and it was fast right away, and we just kept tuning on it.” MiamiHerald.com
Virginia native Denny Hamlin (126.665 mph), who dominated last year’s spring race at Richmond before cutting a tire in the closing laps, qualified third, .004 seconds ahead of fourth-place starter Martin Truex Jr. (126.642 mph). Jeff Burton (126.322 mph) claimed the fifth starting spot.
Mike Bliss (126.322 mph) qualified sixth in James Finch’s No. 09 car.
Mark Martin, rookie Scott Speed, David Reutimann and Ryan Newman will start from positions seven through 10, respectively. NASCAR.com
“We were hoping to get somewhere in the top 10,” Hamlin said. “We didn’t think we had a car for the pole. As close as it came, it looks like we got everything we could out of it.”
Asked if he could dominate again, he spied Gordon entering the room.
“With Brian and Jeff on the front row, it should take at least half a lap to get around them,” Hamlin said. “You just don’t have cars that are that dominant like that. It was just an extreme circumstance where we happened to get lucky and hit the set-up that day.”
Other notable qualifiers included points leader Kurt Busch in the 17th position, defending race champion Clint Bowyer in the 12th spot and three-time defending series champion Jimmie Johnson in 15th. Tony Stewart, who is fourth in points, will start in the 16th spot. The Associated Press
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