In recent weeks, the NASCAR storyline of note is how difficult it is to pass, even when a driver clearly has a faster car than anyone else does. But that won’t be an issue for Matt Kenseth, at least for the beginning of Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Kenseth’s lap of 194.252 mph gave him the pole in qualifying Thursday night, besting Joey Logano for the No. 1 position. Carl Edwards, Greg Biffle and Denny Hamlin completed rounded out the top-five qualifiers. Kenseth, Edwards and Hamlin are teammates at Joe Gibbs Racing.
“I think starting in front is important,” Kenseth said. “You want to have good track position, good pit selection and all those things. If you do get a little off and you’re chasing the setup a little with the track changing, you have a little bit of buffer being toward the front hopefully.”
Hamlin won the All-Star Race over Stewart-Haas Racing teammates Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch last Saturday. Although Harvick and Busch each had faster cars than Hamlin throughout the non-points exhibition, but because of dirty air neither were unable to pull alongside and complete a pass over the final 10 laps.
Harvick, the series points leader, qualified eighth for NASCAR’s longest race. Busch starts 14th.
“I really do feel like, yes, track position is going to be important, but the All-Star race everybody has four tires, it’s 10 laps and that’s probably going to be quite different than what you have at the end of the 600,” Kenseth said. “People have been driving for four hours and cars that have been out there for four hours and some people are going to drop out. Things are just going to be different.”
Five drivers — Jeb Burton, Mike Bliss, Travis Kvapil, Jeff Green and Brendan Gaughan — failed to qualify.
Coca-Cola 600 starting lineup
