Jimmie Johnson picked up his first pole of the season by winning Friday’s qualifying for the IRWIN Tools Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Johnson, who won at Bristol for the first time in March, posted a lap of 123.475 m.p.h. around the 0.533-mile, high-banked oval for his 24th career Sprint Cup Series pole, but his first since last year’s season-ending race at Homestead.
Johnson, the four-time defending series champion, knocked Carl Edwards off of the pole position shortly after Edwards’ qualifying lap of 122.937 m.p.h., which put him on the outside pole. MiamiHerald.com
“We spent a lot of time focused on the bottom of the race track,” said Johnson, who has averaged a 3.8 starting position over the past six races compared with a 21.3 average finish. “There was a lot of questioning and concern in my mind. I went on top of the transporter and watched all the guys go, and nobody made the bottom work until late, when the 20 [Logano] went out.
“That gave me hope, but we really couldn’t change directions at that point, because we’d set the car up to run the bottom for qualifying and felt like it would be foolish to change things.”
When Edwards saw Johnson running the bottom of the track, Edwards was convinced he was the pole winner.
“I couldn’t believe Jimmie got the pole running the bottom,” Edwards said. “I thought the top was faster. When I was watching his lap on the big screen, I thought, ‘Oh, he’s on the bottom; he’s screwed this up.’ And, lo and behold, he ran a really fast lap.” NASCAR.com
Joey Logano qualified third.
Tony Stewart qualified fourth and David Reutimann bounced back from a bout with food poisoning to qualify fifth.
For Johnson, who finally broke through for his first Bristol win in 17 career starts in March, a good run Saturday night could stop his annual summer slump. With five victories — enough to ensure him a great seeding spot at the start of the Chase — he’s had the luxury of experimenting a bit over the past month.
It’s the same strategy crew chief Chad Knaus has used over the last few seasons, and the team has always turned it up a notch when the championship race begins.
Now, with only one top-10 finish in his last six races, he’s looking to get some momentum as the “regular season” winds down.
“Once Chad and I can figure out where we need to work, we seem to do pretty well with it,” Johnson said. The Associated Press
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NASCAR Sprint Cup Series: Irwin Tools Night Race at Bristol - Race Line-Up
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