Kyle Busch will roll off ninth in his No. 18 M&M’s® Toyota Camry for Saturday night’s Sharpie 500 Sprint Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway. After a confident showing in the only practice session of the day, Busch ran a lap time of 15.917 seconds in qualifying to earn his 15th top-10 start of the season.
Weather in Bristol on Friday was beautiful by any standard. Morning temperatures in the mid-60s escalated quickly by noon when Sprint Cup Series began under clear skies. A few quick runs in race trim in the early stages of practice showed Busch and his team that they had a strong car. They experimented with a few changes to remedy a loose condition, but were otherwise satisfied with their results.
Busch commented on his race car after the first and only practice by saying, “It wasn’t bad. We felt like in race trim, it was pretty comparable to everybody else. We just can’t seem to get the speed out of qualifying. We never can here, anyway.”
Qualifying started at 3:40pm and Busch was slated as the 22nd driver to take his qualifying lap. After one warm-up lap, Busch hustled his Toyota around the half-mile bullring for two laps. The first lap was the fastest of the two with a time of 15.917 seconds and a speed of 120.550mph. The qualifying effort placed Busch on the inside of row five in the ninth position for the start of the Sharpie 500.
“I couldn’t seem to roll the center and come off the corner like we needed to,” Busch said after climbing from his race car. “But we ended up near the front. The track heated up so it just slowed down overall and lost grip. Whatever you were fighting with in practice just escalates.”
Busch’s teammates found themselves a little further down the qualifying sheet. Denny Hamlin qualified his No. 11 Toyota in the 21st spot with a time of 15.979 seconds, while Tony Stewart put his No. 20 Toyota in the 28th position with a time of 16.021 seconds.
The pole winner for Saturday’s race was Carl Edwards. With a qualifying lap of 15.746 seconds, Edwards earned his first career pole at Bristol Motor Speedway and his first pole of the 2008 season. David Reutimann improved greatly from his practice time to post a qualifying lap of 15.835 seconds, good enough to earn a second-place starting spot. Jeff Gordon, Regan Smith and veteran driver Bill Elliott grabbed third, fourth and fifth, respectively.
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