Kentucky qualifying speeds up

SPARTA. Ky. -- It's generally anyone's guess when it comes to picking a favorite at Kentucky Speedway, but Brad Keselowski looks like as good a choice as any.

Keselowski won the pole for tonight's 400-mile NASCAR Sprint Cup race by turning in a track-record of 188.791 mph during knockout qualifying Friday.

Keselowski, who won here in 2012, credited crew chief Paul Wolfe for coming up with the best setup on a day when 23 drivers broke Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s year-old mark of 183.636 mph in the first round.

"I thought we were all going to be a lot slower, so I was a little bit surprised by the speeds that were run," said Keselowski, the 2012 NASCAR champion. "Paul did a good job working on and adjusting the car and getting it to where I wanted it, and they hit what I wanted."

Keselowski overtook Penske Racing teammate Joey Logano, who turned a lap of 187.175 mph after leading the first two rounds of knockout qualifying.

"That's a really good lap right there," Logano said of Keselowski's run that bumped him off the pole. "Brad had a lot of speed in practice, and we kind of wondered where it went in the first couple rounds of qualifying, then he figured it out again, obviously."

Series points leader Jeff Gordon will start third, salvaging a session in which Hendrick Motorsports teammates Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. failed to make it past the first round of qualifying. Gordon posted a run of 186.832 mph, while Johnson turned in a best effort of 183.661 mph and Earnhardt's best lap was 182.803 mph. Johnson will start 25th, with Earnhardt starting 29th.

"I like [Kentucky] because it's a challenging race track and I like a good challenge," said Gordon, who was eighth last year and along with Earnhardt has posted multiple top-10 finishes on the 1.5-mile track. "Our cars have been good here the last few times."

Denny Hamlin will start fourth after turning in a lap of 186.374 mph, and Kevin Harvick will start fifth following his lap of 186.104 mph.

Defending champion Matt Kenseth comes into the race still looking for his first victory this season. He qualified 14th with a lap of 185.714 mph but said he isn't sure if past success carries over at a track like Kentucky.

Kentucky Speedway has hyped its rough surface in TV ads, and some drivers believe it might be the circuit's roughest.

"It's definitely a jolt because you're hitting concrete every time you go through holes on the front stretch," said rookie Austin Dillon, who qualified 16th at 185.344 mph and has two Nationwide Series victories at the track. "I just try to get the car to turn through them."

Johnson dominated last June's race, leading 182 laps, and was poised to overtake Kenseth on a late restart before a spin racing four-wide run dropped him from second to ninth. Kenseth went on to his fourth victory of the season despite taking fuel only on his last stop.

Johnson said he has changed his restart procedure to deal with the guessing games. With a sparkling Kentucky record highlighted by three top-five starts that includes the 2012 pole and three top-10 finishes, the six-time Cup champion believes he's due to break through.

"We've been close," said Johnson, who just missed advancing out of the final round of qualifying Friday. "It's just on that last run, varying mistakes have kept us from going to victory lane. We've had a car capable of winning -- I think two of them, at least, I'm not sure about the third -- so it's just executing in that final run."

Kentucky begins a 10-race stretch before the Chase and marks the circuit's last 1.5-mile track until Atlanta on Labor Day weekend. Kurt Busch believes that recent intermediate-length performance will be important.

"If you've been good on the mile-and-a-halfs here recently, you're going to be good here," said the 2004 champion who has two top-10s in three starts at the track but is struggling at that distance this season.

Carl Edwards can join Kyle Busch as the only drivers to win in all three national series at Kentucky with a victory tonight. Edwards won in the Camping World Truck Series in 2003 and added a Nationwide Series victory two years later.

Sports on 06/28/2014

Upcoming Events