Carl Edwards poses with the Coors Light Pole award after qualifying for the pole position for Saturday night’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway. Photo by Jeff Curry/NASCAR via Getty Images
Carl Edwards spoiled the day for teammate Denny Hamlin but carried the day for Joe Gibbs Racing, winning the pole for Saturday night’s Bristol Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Edwards topped the third and final round of Friday’s qualifying session with a lap of 14.602 seconds (131.407 mph) to knock teammate Matt Kenseth from the top spot. Kyle Busch then took over the second spot, putting JGR in position to sweep the top three spots before Ryan Blaney cracked the top three to break up the trifecta.
Hamlin, who topped his own track qualifying record in the opening round, hit the track in the final minutes and rocketed to the second spot, but couldn’t top Edwards. Hamlin’s time of 14.625 seconds (131.200 mph) was enough to knock Blaney out of the top three to preserve the sweep for JGR, with Kyle Busch (14.655, 130.931 mph) holding third. Blaney (14.688, 130.637 mph) slipped to fourth, while Kenseth (14.690, 130.619 mph) rounded out the top five.
Edwards’ pole was his fifth of the season and 21st of his career, and gives him two straight at Bristol, after taking the pole and the win in the race held here back in April.
“A little bit surprising – we didn’t make a mock (qualifying) run,” said Edwards. “That tells you how great of teammates I have. They’re so fast and they helped us a lot, so we’ll start where we started earlier this year. Hopefully we can put Stanley in victory lane, but this is going to be a heck of a race. Those are fast laps. That’s a lot of fun. Just proud of my guys – they worked really hard. We rolled the dice and it was fast.
“All these JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) Toyotas are great. We’ve been working well together, pushing each other and, like I said, I owe it to my teammates. This is – with no qualifying runs in practice, this is pretty cool.”
Hamlin led both of the opening rounds of Friday’s qualifying session, taking the top spot in the opening round with a lap of 14.573 seconds (131.668 mph), breaking his own track speed record of 131.407 set just last year. Kyle Busch took the second spot, followed by Joey Logano, Kenseth and Blaney.
In the second round, Hamlin rocketed back to the top of the leaderboard again, clocking in at 14.704 seconds (130.495). Kenseth, Martin Truex, Jr., Blaney and Edwards rounded out the top five in the round.
With the third and final round underway, Hamlin waited until the final two minutes to try and sweep all three rounds, but came up .023 seconds short.
Although he gets to keep his name in the track record books, Hamlin would rather have won his first pole of the season.
“It’s a small consolation,” said Hamlin of keeping the track record. “It would still be cool to get a pole. We haven’t got a pole this year, and we want to get that done. I definitely was mindful of the track record, because we had it before so I wanted make sure we kept it.
“I can’t believe we’ve qualified as good as we have this year and to not have gotten a pole has been unbelievable, but still a great effort by our whole team and hopefully we have a good race up here tomorrow night and we get in victory lane.”
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
Bristol Motor Speedway – Bristol, TN
Bristol Night Race – Aug. 19, 2016
Friday’s Qualifying Results
1. (19) Carl Edwards, Toyota, 131.407 mph.
2. (11) Denny Hamlin, Toyota, 131.200 mph.
3. (18) Kyle Busch, Toyota, 130.931 mph.
4. (21) Ryan Blaney #, Ford, 130.637 mph.
5. (20) Matt Kenseth, Toyota, 130.619 mph.
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7. (78) Martin Truex, Jr., Toyota, 129.544 mph.
8. (47) A.J. Allmendinger, Chevrolet, 129.482 mph.
9. (2) Brad Keselowski, Ford, 129.334 mph.
10. (22) Joey Logano, Ford, 129.169 mph.
11. (88) Jeff Gordon, Chevrolet, 129.038 mph.
12. (34) Chris Buescher #, Ford, 128.296 mph.
13. (3) Austin Dillon, Chevrolet, 129.021 mph.
14. (41) Kurt Busch, Chevrolet, 128.926 mph.
15. (31) Ryan Newman, Chevrolet, 128.666 mph.
16. (48) Jimmie Johnson, Chevrolet, 128.623 mph.
17. (43) Aric Almirola, Ford, 128.623 mph.
18. (83) Matt DiBenedetto, Toyota, 128.503 mph.
19. (5) Kasey Kahne, Chevrolet, 128.477 mph.
20. (27) Paul Menard, Chevrolet, 128.477 mph.
21. (13) Casey Mears, Chevrolet, 128.262 mph.
22. (6) Trevor Bayne, Ford, 128.142 mph.
23. (42) Kyle Larson, Chevrolet, 127.997 mph.
24. (4) Kevin Harvick, Chevrolet, 127.436 mph.
25. (17) Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Ford, 128.279 mph.
26. (95) Michael McDowell, Chevrolet, 128.134 mph.
27. (14) Tony Stewart, Chevrolet, 127.835 mph.
28. (1) Jamie McMurray, Chevrolet, 127.809 mph.
29. (10) Danica Patrick, Chevrolet, 127.648 mph.
30. (44) Brian Scott #, Ford, 127.588 mph.
31. (15) Clint Bowyer, Chevrolet, 126.997 mph.
32. (38) Landon Cassill, Ford, 126.989 mph.
33. (7) Regan Smith, Chevrolet, 126.553 mph.
34. (16) Greg Biffle, Ford, 126.545 mph.
35. (98) Cole Whitt, Chevrolet, 125.486 mph.
36. (55) Reed Sorenson, Chevrolet, 125.363 mph.
37. (23) David Ragan, Toyota, 125.158 mph.
38. (32) Jeffrey Earnhardt #, Ford, 124.307 mph.
39. (46) Michael Annett, Chevrolet, 123.626 mph.
40. (30) Josh Wise, Chevrolet, 122.263 mph.
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