Benefiting from an early qualifying draw, Juan Montoya sped around 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway in 51.863 seconds (184.640 mph) Saturday to win the pole for Sunday’s Amp Energy Juice 500.
The pole was Montoya’s second at Talladega, his third of the season and the fifth of his Cup career. Montoya was the sixth driver to make a qualifying attempt when track conditions were slightly cooler and before winds became more gusty.
Clint Bowyer (184.498 mph) qualified second for the seventh race in the Chase. Kurt Busch (184.388 mph) will start third, followed by Joe Nemechek (184.253 mph) and Jeff Burton (184.161 mph). NASCAR.com
While the focus should be on Montoya’s bid to win his first race on an oval track, he knows it will instead be on the middle of the pack, where championship contenders Jimmie Johnson, Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick will start Sunday’s race.
“If you are in the Chase and you are not in the top three (in standings), nobody even cares,” Montoya said.
It’s the downside of the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship, which pits the top-12 drivers against each other in a 10-race push to the title. Sunday’s race at Talladega is the beginning of the final four-race stretch, and the field has separated itself so that only three drivers have a realistic shot at winning the title.
And none of them was as good as Montoya in qualifying. ABC News
“It was a good lap,” Montoya said. “It’s been a weird day with the loss of Jim (Hunter) and I think everybody was a good friend of him and everybody is going to really miss him; I’m going to really miss him. It really sucks. But the team did an amazing. Brian (Pattie, his crew chief) always comes with really good parts here. We always have really good restrictor plate cars. It’s nice to get the pole here in his memory.”
“I did everything I could do,” Bowyer said. “I held it wide open and tried to hold it as straight as possible and be as smooth as possible. There’s no question that our ECR horsepower is the reason we’re sitting on the front row.” RacinToday.com
Dale Earnhardt Jr., Dave Blaney, Ryan Newman, Casey Mears and Sam Hornish Jr. occupy the sixth through to 10th places respectively.
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NASCAR Sprint Cup Series: Amp Energy Juice 500 at Talladega - Race Line-Up
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