Everything’s coming up roses for Stewart-Haas Racing.
Five days after owner/driver Tony Stewart won the Sprint All-Star Race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, his teammate, Ryan Newman, ripped off a pole-winning run for Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at the 1.5-mile track.
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Newman turned a lap in 28.651 seconds (188.475 mph) Thursday to earn the top starting spot for the 600-miler, NASCAR’s longest race. Kyle Busch (188.258 mph) made a concerted attempt to unseat Newman, who gave Stewart-Haas its first Sprint Cup pole, but fell just short after a slight mistake getting into Turn 3. NASCAR.com
It was Newman’s eighth career pole at Lowe’s Motor Speedway — the most of any active driver — and the Stewart-Haas Racing driver’s 44th overall.
Points leader Jeff Gordon qualified third, followed by Hendrick Motorsports teammates Mark Martin and Jimmie Johnson. The Associated Press
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“It was a good lap,” Newman said. “(Crew chief) Tony Gibson did a great job with the car. We started (practice) in race trim and then put it in qualifying trim and made it better. We’re really looking forward to the rest of the weekend. It’s nice after doing this to have a day off.”
Newman moved ahead of Jeff Gordon for second most poles at Lowe’s with eight. David Pearson hold the pole record here with 14.
“I didn’t want to screw up the lap getting down into (turns) three and four,” Busch said. “We couldn’t get turned all the way down to the bottom to get to the white line. I shorted the corner a little bit and messed it up.”
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J.J. Yeley, Mike Garvey, Todd Bodine and David Starr failed to qualify. Yeley took over driving duties of the No.41 Toyota last week after NASCAR suspended driver/owner Jeremy Mayfield for violating the sanctioning body’s substance abuse policy. Kansas City Star
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