Marcos Ambrose poses with the Coors Light Pole award after qualifying for pole position for Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event at Michigan International Speedway. Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images
Australian Marcos Ambrose has a new distinction — he’s the fastest thing in a NASCAR Sprint Cup stock car in 25 years.
With a record-setting run Saturday at Michigan International Speedway, Ambrose won the pole for Sunday’s Quicken Loans 400, leading 18 other drivers who broke the 200-mph barrier and 38 others who topped Ryan Newman’s previous track record of 194.232 mph, set in 2005.
Ambrose claimed the first Coors Light pole award of his career with a lap at 203.241 mph (35.426 seconds), beating second-place qualifier Kevin Harvick (202.037 mph) by .211 seconds. But Ambrose didn’t have long to enjoy it.
Because of tire blistering at high speeds during testing and practice on Thursday and Friday, Goodyear had mandated change to a harder left-side tire after qualifying. Cup teams were set to practice on the new tires late Saturday afternoon in preparation for Sunday’s race.
Greg Biffle, whose top practice speed on Friday was a series-best 204.708 mph, qualified third on Saturday at 201.816 mph.
Kasey Kahne (201.720 mph) and Newman (201.472 mph) completed the top five. Series leader Matt Kenseth will start sixth on Sunday after a lap at 201.461 mph.
Ambrose’s lap was the fastest run in the series since Bill Elliott posted 212.809 mph at Talladega in 1987, the last year the series ran at Daytona and Talladega without restrictor plates. It was the fastest lap ever run at a speedway other and Daytona and Talladega and the 11th-fastest in series history.
Ambrose is the fourth driver to win a pole at a speed in excess of 200 mph, joining Benny Parsons, Cale Yarborough and Bill Elliott.
“It is good bragging right — I’ll give it that,” Ambrose said. “I’m just really excited to get the speed, and to claim to be the fastest guy out there is just awesome. We’ve missed some poles — this is my first pole in Sprint Cup — we’ve missed some by thousandths of a second and conditions changing, so it’s good that we actually got one to stick, and one that’s got so many records attached to it.
“It felt that fast to me, too. It felt like I was getting it done. Really fun times out there. When you get onto the frontstretch, and you gain about 100 RPM in a mile, you know that you got everything you could out of the corner. We were wide open for about 98 percent of the lap, and I felt very good about how we got the car dialed in to do that.”
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
Michigan International Speedway – Brooklyn, MI
Quicken Loans 400 Qualifying – June 16, 2012
1 9 Marcos Ambrose 35.426 203.241
2 29 Kevin Harvick 35.637 202.037
3 16 Greg Biffle 35.676 201.816
4 5 Kasey Kahne 35.693 201.720
5 39 Ryan Newman 35.737 201.472
6 17 Matt Kenseth 35.739 201.461
7 21 Trevor Bayne 35.742 201.444
8 14 Tony Stewart 35.755 201.370
9 20 Joey Logano 35.777 201.247
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11 11 Denny Hamlin 35.842 200.882
12 78 Regan Smith 35.870 200.725
13 15 Clint Bowyer 35.877 200.686
14 55 Mark Martin 35.894 200.591
15 43 Aric Almirola 35.930 200.390
16 56 Martin Truex Jr. 35.931 200.384
17 88 Dale Earnhardt Jr. 35.943 200.317
18 27 Paul Menard 35.976 200.133
19 1 Jamie McMurray 35.980 200.111
20 22 AJ Allmendinger 36.010 199.944
21 42 Juan Pablo Montoya 36.070 199.612
22 33 Austin Dillon 36.083 199.540
23 23 Scott Riggs 36.095 199.474
24 13 Casey Mears 36.262 198.555
25 2 Brad Keselowski 36.277 198.473
26 51 Kurt Busch 36.320 198.238
27 98 Michael McDowell 36.342 198.118
28 24 Jeff Gordon 36.378 197.922
29 19 Mike Bliss 36.404 197.780
30 26 Josh Wise 36.419 197.699
31 47 Bobby Labonte 36.475 197.395
32 83 Landon Cassill 36.532 197.087
33 31 Jeff Burton 36.538 197.055
34 18 Kyle Busch 36.543 197.028
35 38 David Gilliland 36.580 196.829
36 36 Dave Blaney 36.582 196.818
37 87 Joe Nemechek 36.591 196.770
38 34 David Ragan 36.609 196.673
39 93 Travis Kvapil 37.285 193.107
40 32 Ken Schrader Owner Points
41 10 Tony Raines Owner Points
42 99 Carl Edwards Owner Points
43 49 JJ Yeley 36.901 195.117
Did Not Qualify: David Stremme, Stacy Compton
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