Joey Logano climbs from his car after qualifying for Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event at Pocono Raceway. Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Image
Joey Logano may have left some speed on the race track, but he had enough on Saturday afternoon to win the pole for Sunday’s Pocono 400 presented by #NASCAR at newly repaved Pocono Raceway.
In a qualifying session that saw 36 drivers break Kasey Kahne’s 2004 track record of 172.533 mph, Logano was fastest, collecting his first Coors Light pole award of the season and the fourth of his career. Unlike most drivers who followed him in the qualifying order, Logano backed up his Sprint-Cup-Series-best time from Friday’s final practice session at the 2.5-mile triangular track.
Logano covered the distance in 50.112 seconds (179.598 mph), beating Carl Edwards for the top starting spot by .205 seconds. Edwards (178.866 mph) will start second ahead of Paul Menard (178.582 mph), and Logano’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammates, Kyle Busch (178.575 mph) and Denny Hamlin (178.543 mph).
Hamlin, a four-time race winner at Pocono, was ahead of Logano’s pace until an oil line broke on his No. 11 Toyota as he entered Turn 3. Hamlin skated in his own oil and lost his advantage as he completed the lap.
Turn 1 was a problem area, with oil-dry from Friday afternoon’s ARCA practice covering the racing groove. Logano felt he lost a little momentum in the corner, but the lap stood up.
“The track was dirty,” Logano said. “When I went out there and got to that trouble spot, I got loose a little bit and didn’t get to the bottom as well as I wanted to. So I felt like I left a tenth and a half (of a second) or so right there, but I felt like I nailed (turns) 2 and 3 pretty well.
“I was hoping it would be in the top five, and it ended up being good enough.”
Conventional wisdom, even as the session progressed, was that the 50-second barrier (180 mph) would fall. But Logano went out 18th and waited as his time stood up to the 26 drivers who succeeded him in the qualifying order.
Edwards was at a loss to explain why times weren’t faster during a session that began in cool overcast and ended with the sun peeking through the layer of clouds.
“I think it’s really hard to determine what makes this track faster right now,” Edwards said. “I don’t know if being a little warmer makes it faster. I thought, as we went on and that speedy-dry and the groove got cleaned off, that people would go a lot faster, so it’s a surprise to me.”
Menard characterized the time trials as the most important of the year so far, given the importance of track position in Sunday’s race. After three days of testing and practice, drivers had to lay down one lap on Saturday, with no margin for error.
“I’m actually surprised we went that fast, with not being on the track all day,” Menard said.
Series leader Greg Biffle and second-place Matt Kenseth will start 13th and 14th, respectively. David Stremme brushed the wall off turn 1 on his first qualifying lap and failed to make the 43-car field.
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
Pocono Raceway – Long Pond, PA
Pocono 400 presented by #NASCAR Qualifying – June 9, 2012
1 20 Joey Logano 50.112 179.598
2 99 Carl Edwards 50.317 178.866
3 27 Paul Menard 50.397 178.582
4 18 Kyle Busch 50.399 178.575
5 11 Denny Hamlin 50.408 178.543
6 55 Mark Martin 50.497 178.228
7 78 Regan Smith 50.517 178.158
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9 9 Marcos Ambrose 50.601 177.862
10 5 Kasey Kahne 50.612 177.823
11 1 Jamie McMurray 50.659 177.658
12 24 Jeff Gordon 50.694 177.536
13 16 Greg Biffle 50.699 177.518
14 17 Matt Kenseth 50.704 177.501
15 83 Landon Cassill 50.789 177.204
16 15 Clint Bowyer 50.840 177.026
17 42 Juan Pablo Montoya 50.851 176.988
18 39 Ryan Newman 50.890 176.852
19 22 AJ Allmendinger 50.904 176.803
20 31 Jeff Burton 50.946 176.658
21 29 Kevin Harvick 50.979 176.543
22 14 Tony Stewart 51.015 176.419
23 56 Martin Truex Jr. 51.090 176.160
24 48 Jimmie Johnson 51.093 176.149
25 51 David Reutimann 51.115 176.074
26 13 Casey Mears 51.254 175.596
27 47 Bobby Labonte 51.260 175.575
28 19 Mike Bliss 51.315 175.387
29 43 Aric Almirola 51.382 175.159
30 98 Michael McDowell 51.407 175.073
31 2 Brad Keselowski 51.464 174.880
32 49 JJ Yeley 51.741 173.943
33 87 Joe Nemechek 51.763 173.869
34 34 David Ragan 51.768 173.853
35 26 Josh Wise 51.874 173.497
36 38 David Gilliland 51.951 173.240
37 93 Travis Kvapil 52.370 171.854
38 23 Scott Riggs 52.472 171.520
39 74 Stacy Compton 52.584 171.155
40 36 Tony Raines 53.760 167.411
41 32 Reed Sorenson Owner Points
42 10 Dave Blaney Owner Points
43 33 Stephen Leicht 52.834 170.345
Did Not Qualify: David Stremme
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