Martin Truex Jr. qualified 12th for Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 Sprint Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway.
Driving the No. 78 Bass Pro Shops/TRACKER Boats Toyota in Friday’s qualifying session, Truex posted the fifth and seventh fastest speeds in the first two rounds – 193.264 and 191.741 miles per hour.
In the pole shootout round, his lap time and speed on the 1.5-mile oval slowed to 28.487 seconds at 189.560.
“We just made some adjustments for the third round and were trying to drive the car a little different and just absolutely killed it,” explained Truex, who won the pole at the last two races. “We probably should have been around fifth or sixth, somewhere like that where we were the first two rounds. But we were trying to go for first. Sometimes you take those chances and miss it. We missed it today.”
The pole winner was Austin Dillon. Rounding out the top 12 in order were: Joey Logano, Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski, Kyle Larson, Paul Menard, Matt Kenseth, Ryan Blaney, Carl Edwards, Kurt Busch, Chase Elliott and Truex.
Sunday’s race will be televised on NBC, noon MT (1 p.m. CT).