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Truex Fastest in Final Sprint Cup Practice at Texas

April 8, 2016
Truex Fastest in First Sprint Cup Practice at Texas

Martin Truex Jr. topped the chart in the first Sprint Cup Series practice at Texas Motor Speedway Thursday evening. The driver of the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota was the fastest with a time of 27.995 and a speed of 192.892 mph.

“It was a good practice for our Bass Pro Shops Camry. We stayed in qualifying trim just so we could use our tires better for tomorrow. It went good. We were off a little bit at the start and got better each run and on our last run, felt really good about it. It’s been a while since I’ve had a pole,” Truex said.

Brad Keselowski was second in his No. 2 Team Penske Ford with a time of 28.101 and a speed of 192.164 mph. Teammate Joey Logano was third in his No. 22 Penske Ford with a time of 28.104 and a speed of 192.143 mph. Austin Dillon was fourth in his No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet with a time of 28.182 and a speed of 192.612 mph and Brian Vickers rounded out the top-five in his No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet with a time of 28.187 and a speed of 191.578 mph.

Jimmie Johnson was sixth fastest in his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet followed by AJ Allmendinger who was seventh in his No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet. Greg Biffle was eighth in his No. 16 Roush Fenway Racing Ford, Kyle Larson was ninth in his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet as Ryan Blaney rounded out the top-10 in his No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford.

No driver posted a 10 consecutive lap average during the session.

The Sprint Cup cars are back on the track Friday afternoon at 2:45 p.m. ET for qualifying.

Complete NSCS Practice 1 Results at Texas Motor Speedway:

April 8, 2016
2016 Duck Commander 500 Preview

Slide into your cowboy boots, hop on your trusty steed and ride out west because NASCAR is heading to the LoneStar State.

This week, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series rolls into Fort Worth, Texas to run the Duck Commander 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. The 501 mile (801.6 km) race on the 1.5-mile (2.4 km) quad-oval intermediate speedway will be the seventh race of the 2016 season.

I don’t know what to expect this weekend, even with the low-downforce package. With that and the aged surface, one might expect to see what we saw at Atlanta and Auto Club. However, Texas has not put on good races for many years now. It got to the point that Texas became my least favorite track on the schedule. In the past, I’ve set my expectations of Texas to nothing. This weekend, I’m tempted to maybe bump my expectations a tad bit higher.

Texas Motor Speedway opened its doors in 1997 to a crowd of over 180-thousand fans, a 13-car wreck going into turn 1 and Jeff Burton scoring his first victory in the Sprint Cup Series. After 30 races the track has seen 18 different drivers shoot off the six-shooters in victory lane. In fact, we went 12 straight races before having a repeat winner here in 2007. Now I know what you’re thinking, “But Tucker, hasn’t one driver practically owned the deed at Texas since 2012?” You probably weren’t, but I needed a segue.

Johnson is the hands-on favorite this weekend. Photo: Sarah Crabill/Getty Images for Texas Motor Speedway

At 9/2 (Vegas Insider), the hands-on favorite this weekend is one Jimmie Kenneth Johnson.

In 25 career starts at Texas, the driver of the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet has amassed six wins, 13 top fives (52 percent) and 19 top-10s (76 percent). In the last eight races, he’s led 156, 168, zero, 255, zero, 191, 128 and six laps. He won in five of those eight races.

In his last eight races, he’s finished second, first, sixth, first, 25th, first, first and first. That’s a 4.8 average finish to go along with a career average of 8.4 at Texas. He’s also DNF’d at Texas once in his career at Texas back in 2007.

Just like I’ve joked about Phoenix being the track owned by Happy Harvick, Texas is quickly becoming the track owned by Johnson. He’s also on a role with two wins and sits second in points.I expect Johnson to be up front and fighting for the victory on Saturday night.

Kyle Busch is no slouch when it comes to Texas. Photo: Sarah Crabill/Getty Images

Next up at 7/1 is Kyle Thomas Busch.

In 20 career starts, the driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota has amassed one win, nine top five’s (45 percent) and 10 top-10s (50 percent).

His stats aren’t nearly as impressive as Johnson’s. But then again, who’s would be?

Since 2012, he’s led zero, 80, 171, two, 10, zero and one lap(s). In that same timespan, he’s finished 11th, third, first, 13th, fourth, third and third. That’s a 5.4 finishing average since 2012, which is more than twice as good as his 12.4 career finishing average at Texas.

Unlike Johnson, Busch has never failed to finish a race in the LoneStar State. You can expect to see Busch fighting for the win on Saturday night.

Kevin Harvick will be a force on Saturday. Photo: Tom Pennington/Getty Images

The final driver I’ll talk about at 5/1 is Kevin Michael Harvick.

In 26 career starts, the driver of the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet has amassed zero wins, six top fives (23.1 percent) and 14 top-10s (53.9 percent).

Since 2012, he’s finished ninth, ninth, 13th, eighth, 42nd, second, second and third. That’s a finishing average of 11th. While that’s lower than Johnson’s since 2012, his best runs have come in his time with SHR.

Until last season, Harvick had never led more than two laps in a race at Texas. In both races last year, he led 96 and 11 laps.

There’s also hardly a track on the schedule where he doesn’t put on a great drive. So I would expect Harvick to be a threat to win on Saturday.

Coverage of the Duck Commander 500 begins Saturday night at 7 p.m. ET on FOX. You can catch the radio broadcast at 6:30 p.m. ET on MRN and Sirius XM (subscription required for the latter).

April 7, 2016
NASCAR Top-10 Power Rankings: Martinsville

Note: The quotes in this article are fictional.

1. Kyle Busch: Busch led 352 of 500 laps on his way to a commanding win in the STP 500, his first ever Sprint Cup win at Martinsville.

“Finally,” Busch said, “I get the Martinsville grandfather clock. After 21 tries, I can look at this trophy and confidently say, ‘It’s about time.’

“Leading 352 of 500 laps is just pure dominance. I’m shocked that the car was a good as it was. And my crew chief Dave Rogers was as well. After the race, he said to me, ‘Do you know how fast you were going?’”

2. Jimmie Johnson: Johnson finished ninth in the STP 500, posting his fourth top 10 of the year. He is second in the Sprint Cup points standings, four behind Kevin Harvick.

“I advocate stronger concussion protocols in our sport,” Johnson said. “Chad Knaus disagrees. He’s against anything that calls for more thorough inspections.”

3. Kevin Harvick: Harvick finished 17th at Martinsville, his first result outside the top 10 this season.

“If you would have told me before the race,” Harvick said, “that I’d finish one spot behind Danica Patrick, I would have said, “I guess I didn’t finish second.”

4. Carl Edwards: Edwards took sixth in the STP 500 as Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch won. Edwards is 14th in the Sprint Cup points standings, 14 out of first.

“Congratulations to Kyle,” Edwards said. “In his victory burnout, he smoked the tires. And speaking of ‘smoking’ the tires, NASCAR driver Derek White was arrested by Canadian police in a tobacco smuggling ring. Authorities seized 52,800 kilograms of tobacco. I guess where tobacco in concerned, the US-Canada border is unfiltered.”

5. Brad Keselowski: Keselowski recorded his second top-five finish of the year with a fifth at Martinsville.

“It was a typical day at Martinsville,” Keselowski said. “There was beating and banging, grumbling, and a few caution flags. These are all examples of your stomach warning you after eating a Martinsville hot dog.”

6. Kurt Busch: Busch finished 13th at Martinsville as younger brother Kyle won. Busch is seventh in the points standings, 44 out of first.

“I’m proud of Kyle for winning his first Martinsville grandfather clock,” Busch said. “As you know, clocks have little hands and big hands, and Brian France earlier made his political endorsement based on that criteria.”

7. Joey Logano: Logano started on the pole but went a lap down early at Martinsville, as tire grip issues sent him backward. However, he recovered to post a solid 11th, and now occupies the fifth spot in the points standings.

“We hit a rough patch to start the race,” Logano said, “but we worked things out. That’s a testament to the preparation and attention to detail of this team. There’s a lot to be said for crossing your T’s and dotting your ‘squinty and douchey’ ‘I’s.’

8. Denny Hamlin: Hamlin crashed early and finished a disappointing 39th in the STP 500 at Martinsville.

“The wreck was the result of a wheel hop,” Hamlin said. “Frankly, I’m embarrassed that it happened. I’m also angry. You could say I’m ‘hopping mad.’ Ironically, if you’ve ever seen me play basketball, you know I’ve never been accused of having ‘mad hops.’”

9. Dale Earnhardt Jr.: After falling a lap down early at Martinsville, Earnhardt battled his way back to score a respectable 14th-place finish. He is ninth in the points standings, 48 out of first.

“As you probably heard,” Earnhardt said, “I decided to donate my brain to concussion research. My dad made a lot of enemies on the track, so you can add ‘science’ to the list of entities that wanted an Earnhardt’s head on a platter.”

10. Austin Dillon: Dillon posted his second top-five finish of the year with a fourth at Martinsville. He is seventh in the Sprint Cup points standings, 44 out of first.

“Joey Logano finished 11th,” Dillon said, “and Matt Kenseth finished 15th. So, much like the last race here, there were four drivers ‘separating’ the two.”

April 5, 2016
Martinsville in the Rear-View

It’s time we put a nice little bow on the events of the Virginia paperclip from this past weekend.

I’ll be honest. Yesterday’s STP 500 was average for a race at Martinsville Speedway. It certainly wasn’t bad or one that I would include in my list of most disappointing races of 2016 (yet), but there wasn’t much of the action or bumping and banging we have come to expect. The rubber wasn’t laying down like Goodyear expected. From what I’ve been told, it was the cold temperatures that contributed to that. I think it’ll be different when we go back to Martinsville in October.

Kyle Busch finally earned his first grandfather clock this weekend after winning Saturday’s Alpha Energy Solutions 250 Camping World Truck Series race. He said after the race that he would put that clock in the foyer to see how long it would take Brexton to figure put how it chimes. He then followed that up by winning the Cup race and earning a second grandfather clock. When asked, he said he doesn’t know where he’ll put No. 2.

It was nothing short of a dominant performance by the driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota this entire weekend. He led 123 of the 255 laps on Saturday and 352 of the 500 yesterday. That means of the 755 laps run this weekend, Busch led 475 of them (62.91 percent). Just to add to his performance yesterday, he had a 148.2 driver rating. That’s less than two-points short of a perfect rating.

I don’t know what they hit on this weekend, but they nailed their car this weekend and nobody was going to beat him.

AJ Allmendinger scored his best finish of the season with a runner-up in his No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet.

He said that he “was hoping for one more spot for a culmination,” but that it was cool that he “passed Jimmie Johnson like five times at Martinsville.”

His performance caught me off guard because he just quietly stayed in the top-10 all day and made a great finish out of it. But then again, it’s been said that Martinsville is rhythm racing, like road course racing, and he’s pretty good when it comes to the road courses.

So far in 2016, he’s amassed two top-10 finishes and sits 12th in points.

Coming off a nasty wreck at Auto Club Speedway two weeks ago and going to a track where he never finished better than 19th, Kyle Larson surprised everyone with a podium finish in his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet.

“In the past, it’s (Martinsville) been my worst racetrack on the schedule, so to get a top‑three finish here feels great, feels like a win, to be honest, and hopefully, this is a good momentum shift that we need,” Larson said. “We’ve been struggling all year long so far and been working hard, but it hasn’t paid off.”

While I not sure how much a good run at Martinsville will translate to a good run at Texas Motor Speedway this weekend, it’s great for Larson after his lackluster season so far.

Austin Dillon continued his strong run of great drives this season with a fourth-place finish. In addition, teammates Paul Menard finished eighth and Ryan Newman rounded out the top-10. More and more, I’m seeing Richard Childress Racing starting to resurge into possibly a winning organization again.

I’ll conclude this by addressing those people who threw beer cans onto the track after the race. Normally, I’d save this for “The White Zone,” but I already did one of those when I talked about those who did this same thing last fall at Talladega. But just like then, there’s no justification to throw objects on track. There are two main reasons: One, you run the risk of injuring someone with a full can of beer. Finally, you should never waste perfectly good beer. I don’t want to sound like a broken record, so I’ll end it here.

That about sums up the events of this weekend. Next up for the Sprint Cup Series is the Duck Commander 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.

*The opinions expressed in this piece are solely those of the author. They may or may not be shared by SpeedwayMedia.com.

April 4, 2016
Rowdy Takes a Bow in Martinsville

MARTINSVILLE, Va.– One clock wasn’t enough for Kyle Busch this weekend because he dominated and scored a second grandfather clock at the Virginia paperclip.

The driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota led 352 of the 500 laps on his way to scoring the victory in the STP 500 at Martinsville Speedway. It’s his 35th career victory in the Sprint Cup Series and first at Martinsville.

“I’d say it certainly helps when you get to run other divisions and that’s why I do it to pay off on Sundays,” Busch said in victory lane. “It doesn’t work every single weekend, but it works more times than it doesn’t, so can’t say enough about everyone at KBM (Kyle Busch Motorsports) for giving me a great piece yesterday to help me learn, teach me some more things about Martinsville that I didn’t already know in 30 other prior starts. I can’t say enough about this whole JGR team on this side. This M&M’s Camry was awesome in practice yesterday. We had a really good car through practice and Adam (Stevens, crew chief) made some really good adjustments overnight to keep us where we need to be in order to run up front all day, led a lot of laps, probably led the most laps there and to win here in Martinsville is pretty cool – finally get to take a clock home. A lot of people said I didn’t deserve yesterday – maybe I don’t – but I certainly got one today.”

AJ Allmendinger brought his No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet home to a runner-up finish.

“Well, I was hoping for one more spot for a culmination. But, I passed Jimmie Johnson like five times at Martinsville; that’s pretty cool! I can’t thank everybody on this team enough, especially (team owners) Tad and Jodi Geschickter. They put a lot of effort into this team. We weren’t where we wanted to be about six months ago. We brought in so many people who stepped up to embrace their new roles. I can’t thank all our sponsors enough.”

Kyle Larson rounded out the podium in his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet. Austin Dillon finished fourth in his No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet and Brad Keselowski rounded out the top-five in his No. 2 Team Penske Ford.

“It was a good Martinsville race,” Keselowski said. “We had a lot of speed with the Miller Lite Ford on the long runs, but just not quite enough on the short runs to make anything of the Gibbs cars. They were really strong all day. All in all, I’m really proud of my team. We’re starting to get to this place where we’re real consistent and can run up front and that’s a good feeling.”

Carl Edwards finished sixth in his No. 19 JGR Toyota. Brian Vickers finished seventh in his No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet followed by Paul Menard who led 10 laps on his way to an eighth-place finish in his No. 27 RCR Chevrolet. Jimmie Johnson finished ninth in his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet while Ryan Newman rounded out the top-10 in his No. 31 RCR Chevrolet.

Pole-sitter Joey Logano led 21 laps, but fell way off early in the race, was busted for an uncontrolled tire and recovered for an 11th-place finish.

“It was frustrating,” said Logano. “You want to go out there and win for sure and we just missed it. The first run was just absolutely awful to go down a lap from the lead, so we fought to get our car better, which we did, and then we over adjusted and came back and over adjusted on the way back, and then we had a pit road penalty. I think we know where we missed it, but we didn’t have the tools to fix what we needed to fix. Once the race starts a lot of times your hands are tied because you only have a certain amount of adjustments on your car or even on pit stops that we could fix what our problem was.

“We’ve just got to back and learn from our mistakes and learn from what happened today. It seems like this tire kind of threw us for a loop today, or at least for our car.”

Matt Kenseth led 45 laps and restarted the race second on the final restart, but was unable to get to the bottom and finished 15th. Despite leading 72 laps, Kevin Harvick was a non-factor toward the end as he finished 17th.

The race lasted three hours, 17 minutes and two seconds at an average speed of 80.088 mph. There were 11 lead changes among five different drivers and eight cautions for 51 laps. Nineteen cars finished on the lead lap and three failed to finish.

“We had a part failure with a part that typically doesn’t break, so I’m not sure,” said Aric Almirola after finishing 40th. “Doug (Yates) will go back and investigate it and I’m sure they’ll figure something out so it won’t ever happen again. It was a disappointing end to our day. We had an okay STP Ford Fusion. We were making it better and were probably a 15th-place car. Walking out of the track now, I certainly would have taken a 15th-place finish because this is gonna put us in a pretty big hole.”

Harvick retains the points lead after Martinsville followed by Johnson (-4), Kyle Busch (-5), Edwards (-14) and Logano (-24), to round out the top five.

Complete Results NSCS STP 500 at Martinsville Speedway:

1. (7) Kyle Busch, Toyota, 500.
2. (6) AJ Allmendinger, Chevrolet, 500.
3. (17) Kyle Larson, Chevrolet, 500.
4. (29) Austin Dillon, Chevrolet, 500.
5. (11) Brad Keselowski, Ford, 500.
6. (25) Carl Edwards, Toyota, 500.
7. (3) Brian Vickers, Chevrolet, 500.
8. (4) Paul Menard, Chevrolet, 500.
9. (24) Jimmie Johnson, Chevrolet, 500.
10. (5) Ryan Newman, Chevrolet, 500.
11. (1) Joey Logano, Ford, 500.
12. (14) Greg Biffle, Ford, 500.
13. (23) Kurt Busch, Chevrolet, 500.
14. (21) Dale Earnhardt Jr, Chevrolet, 500.
15. (9) Matt Kenseth, Toyota, 500.
16. (28) Danica Patrick, Chevrolet, 500.
17. (19) Kevin Harvick, Chevrolet, 500.
18. (16) Martin Truex Jr, Toyota, 500.
19. (12) * Ryan Blaney #, Ford, 500.
20. (10) Chase Elliott #, Chevrolet, 499.
21. (22) David Ragan, Toyota, 499.
22. (2) Kasey Kahne, Chevrolet, 499.
23. (15) Jamie McMurray, Chevrolet, 499.
24. (27) Michael McDowell, Chevrolet, 498.
25. (30) Clint Bowyer, Chevrolet, 497.
26. (26) Brian Scott #, Ford, 496.
27. (32) Trevor Bayne, Ford, 496.
28. (33) Landon Cassill, Ford, 495.
29. (35) Matt DiBenedetto, Toyota, 495.
30. (31) * Cole Whitt, Chevrolet, 495.
31. (18) Casey Mears, Chevrolet, 494.
32. (13) Ricky Stenhouse Jr, Ford, 494.
33. (36) Chris Buescher #, Ford, 491.
34. (34) Regan Smith, Chevrolet, 491.
35. (38) Michael Annett, Chevrolet, 490.
36. (37) Joey Gase(i), Ford, 490.
37. (40) * Reed Sorenson, Chevrolet, 490.
38. (39) * Josh Wise, Chevrolet, Engine, 326.
39. (8) Denny Hamlin, Toyota, Accident, 221.
40. (20) Aric Almirola, Ford, Engine, 206.

April 3, 2016
Kyle Larson Fastest in Final Sprint Cup Practice

MARTINSVILLE, Va.– Kyle Larson topped the chart in the final Sprint Cup Series practice at Martinsville Speedway.

The driver of the No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet was the fastest in the final practice session with a time of 19.835 and a speed of 95.468 mph followed by Kyle Busch who was second in his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota with a time of 19.862 and a speed of 95.338 mph. Brian Vickers was third in his No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet with a time of 19.869 and a speed of 95.304 mph. Ryan Newman was fourth in his No. 31 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet with a time of 19.869 and a speed of 95.304 mph while Martin Truex Jr. rounded out the top-five in his No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota with a time of 19.874 and a speed of 95.280 mph.

Jimmie Johnson was sixth in his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. Denny Hamlin was seventh in his No. 11 JGR Toyota. Matt Kenseth was eighth in his No. 20 JGR Toyota. Kasey Kahne was ninth in his No. 5 HMS Chevrolet. Ryan Blaney rounded out the top-10 in his No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford.

Johnson posted the fastest 10 consecutive lap average at a speed of 94.866 mph. Larson was second at a speed of 94.842 mph and Truex was third at a speed of 94.836 mph.

With practice and qualifying in the books, all that remains is to run the STP 500 tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. on FS1.

Complete NSCS First Practice Results at Martinsville Speedway

Complete NSCS Second Practice Results at Martinsville Speedway

Complete NSCS Final Practice Results at Martinsville Speedway:

April 2, 2016
Kasey Kahne Fastest in Second Sprint Cup Practice

MARTINSVILLE, Va.– Kasey Kahne topped the chart in second Sprint Cup Series practice at Martinsville Speedway.

The driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet was the fastest in the second practice session with a time of 19.710 and a speed of 96.073 mph. Ryan Newman was second in his No. 31 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet with a time of 19.756 and a speed of 95.849 mph. Martin Truex Jr. was third in his No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota with a time of 19.788 and a speed of 95.694 mph. Brian Vickers was fourth in his No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet with a time of 19.795 and a speed of 95.661 mph. Paul Menard rounded out the top-five in his No. 27 RCR Chevrolet with a time of 19.800 and a speed of 95.636 mph.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was sixth in his No. 88 HMS Chevrolet. Casey Mears was seventh in his No. 13 Germain Racing Chevrolet. Matt Kenseth was eighth in his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Denny Hamlin was ninth in his No. 11 JGR Toyota. Clint Bowyer rounded out the top-10 in his No. 15 HScott Motorsports Chevrolet.

Vickers posted the fastest 10 consecutive lap average at a speed of 95.336 mph. Newman was second at a speed of 95.128. Kyle Larson, who was 15th in practice in his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet, was third at a speed of 95.003 mph.

The Sprint Cup Series will be back on track this afternoon at 1 p.m. for final practice.

Complete NSCS Second Practice Results at Martinsville Speedway:

April 2, 2016
Blaney: Bubba’s First Mistake was Being a Vols Fan

MARTINSVILLE, Va.– Critiquing Bubba’s performance with the Vols, Ryan Blaney said his first mistake was “being a fan of the Vols.”

During his media availability at Martinsville Speedway yesterday, the driver of the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford was asked if he had gotten around to analyzing Darrell Wallace Jr.’s performance with the Tennessee Volunteers when he was practicing with the team in Knoxville, Tennessee the previous week.

“The first thing he made a mistake on was being a fan of the Vols,” said Blaney, who is an adamant fan of the Ohio State Buckeyes. “I haven’t critiqued him yet. I saw a video of him completely miss a pass. I don’t think he got a hand on the ball or it went right through his hands, so that was funny – how terrible of an athlete he is (laughing). No, he’s a pretty good athlete. That’s cool. I saw him do that and I’m like, ‘Man, I’d like to do that with Ohio State,’ so maybe that will kind of sway me to go do it, but I haven’t critiqued him yet. I haven’t given him too hard of a time for it.”

During the session, he also spoke of what it was like for the Wood Brothers to be back at the track for the first time since 2011.

“It’s nice to be back at Martinsville with the Wood Brothers team. It’s nice to be back at pretty much their home track. Stuart, Virginia is only 20 miles away from here, not even, so it’s cool to be back here and with those guys and kind of have everybody out and see everything. I think Glenn (Wood) is gonna be able to make it on Sunday, which it’s really gonna be nice to get him to another race, so hopefully, that will go well for him.”

Speaking on his two top-10 finishes this season, Blaney said he “set a goal at the beginning of the year to run all the laps and that hasn’t come true, so that goal is kind of out the window. It’s good to have a couple top-10’s and have some strong runs. I always say there are some races you wish you could take back, like Atlanta and Fontana a couple of weeks ago. We blew a tire, but those are just problems you have to minimize and it stinks; you have two of them early off in the year, but you try to learn from them as much as you can and try to grow from them and try to not have those happen again. We’ll do our best to try to make that happen, but it’s nice to know we have fast race cars.”

“We’ve had fairly good cars every single weekend,” he continued, “and we’re just getting better every single weekend. As we work together, as this team kind of bonds – this is a fairly new team. We brought on a handful of new guys in the beginning of the season. We kept most of the Wood Brothers personnel that has been there for a long time, but we brought in some new people just to help out with the full-time gig because it’s a lot more work. They’re just kind of getting acclimated to each other. They do a great job of working together already, but just the more they work together the stronger that relationship is gonna be and I think it will get a lot smoother from there on out, but it’s been a good start to the year so far.”

April 2, 2016
Logano on the pole for Martinsville

MARTINSVILLE, Va.– Joey Logano will lead the field to the green flag on Sunday at the Virginia paperclip.

The driver of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford scored the pole for the STP 500 at Martinsville Speedway with a time of 19.513 and a speed of 97.043 mph.

“Todd does a great job with this Shell/Pennzoil Ford,” Logano said. “I get to drive this thing and it’s so much fun every time we come here to Martinsville, especially in qualifying. We’ve got to figure out the race part. We haven’t got that grandfather clock yet, but qualifying is something that Todd and I have wrapped our heads around and really understand what we have to do inside the race car and outside the race car. I couldn’t be more proud of these guys. I say all the time that Martinsville is the most important track to start up front and that’s when you’ve got to come here and really show what you’ve got. Everyone back at the shop, the way they build these cars, they did a great job for us today.”

This is his 15th career pole in the Sprint Cup Series and third-consecutive at Martinsville. He joins Jeff Gordon as the only drivers to accomplish this feat.

Kasey Kahne will start second in his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet after posting a time of 19.515 and a speed of 97.033 mph.

“It feels good,” Kahne said. “The car was really fast, this Great Clips Chevrolet. The guys did a nice job in practice and in qualifying. I just kept getting better with my laps…The car is fine. Just let me get my laps a little better.

“I feel good about it (the car). We had a top-10 here the last race, last year; with the backup car because I crashed it in qualifying and this car is better than our primary car was last time.”

Brian Vickers will start third in his No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet after posting a time of 19.549 and a speed of 96.864 mph. Paul Menard will start fourth in his No. 27 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet after posting a time of 19.551 and a speed of 96.854 mph as Ryan Newman rounds out the top-five in his No. 31 RCR Chevrolet after posting a time of 19.575 and a speed of 96.736 mph.

AJ Allmendinger will start sixth in his No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet. Kyle Busch will start seventh in his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.

“We were okay, we’ve just been lacking a little bit overall all day and that’s just kind of what we missed it by there,” Busch said. “Overall, we have decent speed, we just need some more.”

Denny Hamlin will start eighth in his No. 11 JGR Toyota. Matt Kenseth will start ninth in his No. 20 JGR Toyota. Chase Elliott will round out the top-10 in his No. 24 HMS Chevrolet.

Brad Keselowski will start 11th in his No. 2 Penske Ford as Ryan Blaney rounds out the 12 drivers that made the final round of qualifying.

“It’s nice to get to the third round, but it didn’t go the way we wanted it to,” Blaney said. “We didn’t really have good speed that last round, but it’s nice to get a decent starting spot. It’s on the outside, though, so that kind of stinks, but we’ll see how our car is tomorrow.”

Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who just missed the cut into the final round after getting bumped from the transfer spot in the closing seconds of round 2, will start 13th.

“We just got a little bit tight on the lap that I thought was our best lap and I thought it could have been a little bit better,” Stenhouse said. “We didn’t need much, but I was happy with the Fastenal Ford. This is our best qualifying effort at Martinsville. It will give us a good starting spot for Sunday’s race.”

Carl Edwards will start 25th after not making it out of round 1.

“It’s frustrating for me because these JGR Toyota’s are so fast and for me to run 25th is pretty frustrating,” Edwards said. “I think we’ll race well and I ran enough laps that I got a pretty good view of what race true will be like.”

NSCS Complete Starting Lineup:

April 1, 2016