Martin Truex Jr. nailed another top-10 qualifying effort, posting the fourth fastest speed Friday at Kansas Speedway. He will start from the outside of Row 2 in Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 Sprint Cup Series race.
The Furniture Row Racing driver has now qualified in the top 10 a total of 22 times this season, including the past seven races.
Truex’s No. 78 Bass Pro Shops/TRACKER Boats Toyota Camry was eighth fastest in each of the first two rounds of the qualifying competition. In the pole shootout round of 12 he covered the 1.5-mile in 28.304 seconds at 190.786 miles per hour.
“Considering we didn’t quite get everything out of (turns) three and four, it was a pretty good qualifying run,” said Truex. “We improved from the first two rounds and that’s another good sign. We’re going to do the best job we can this weekend and hope to have a shot at winning. But if we don’t we’ll go to Talladega (next week) and race hard and hope for the best. It’s up in the air for everybody and that’s part of racing. That’s part of this Chase.”
The pole winner was Matt Kenseth (28.112 at 192.089). Rounding out the top-12 in order were: Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, Truex, Alex Bowman, Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski, Ryan Newman, AJ Allmendinger, Kevin Harvick and Austin Dillon.
Sunday’s race will be televised on NBC, 12:30 p.m. MT (1:30 p.m. CT).