Furniture Row Racing drivers Martin Truex Jr. and rookie Erik Jones posted the fifth and 20th fastest speeds respectively in Sunday’s Pole Day qualifying at Daytona International Speedway.
Sunday’s Pole Day qualifying at the 2.5-mile tri-oval set the front row for next Sunday’s Daytona 500 and also set the lineup for the Can-Am Duel qualifying races on Thursday night. The twin races will set the remainder of the starting field for the 59th running of The Great American Race. The front row for the 500 was captured by Chase Elliott (pole) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (outside pole).
Based on projected Can-Am Duel lineups, Truex will start third (inside Row 2) in the first race while Jones will start 10th (outside Row 5) in the second.
After qualifying was completed Truex and Jones were quick to give a shout out to their respective crews for the valiant effort of getting both cars through NASCAR’s inspection stations.
“It was a good effort,” said Truex. “We really had no idea what we were going to have today with our Bass Pro Shops/TRACKER Boats Toyota. I am really proud of that effort and really proud of the whole team. It’s been a long couple of days for them and they’ve really been working hard with the template issues and all that we had to go through. It’s definitely a good starting spot and we’ll see what we can do with it.”
Jones, who will make his first Daytona 500 start, said about his lap, “It was good, you can only do so much as a driver here, but the 500 Camry is strong. We just didn’t have the speed in our 5-hour ENERGY Toyota. We’ll work our way up in the duel race and get a little bit better starting spot for the 500. Our guys really worked hard to get the car ready for qualifying — very proud of their effort.”
Entering Sunday’s qualifying Truex made only one qualifying mock run in his No. 78 Bass Pro Shops/TRACKER Boats Toyota and Jones made only a few more in his No. 77 5-hour ENERGY Toyota.
Truex advanced to the final 12 after posting the fourth fastest speed (192.201 mph) in Round 1. His lap speed in the final session was 192.308, a tick slower than Elliott’s pole winning speed of 192.872.
Jones wheeled the No. 77 5-hour ENERGY Toyota Camry to a lap speed of 191.693 mph in the first round.
Thursday’s 60-lap, 150-mile qualifying races will be televised live on Fox Sports 1 with the first race starting at 5 p.m. MT (7 ET).