Martin Truex Jr. qualified 14th and will line up the No. 78 Auto-Owners Insurance Toyota on the outside of Row 7 for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Pocono Raceway.
Truex lapped the 2.5-mile Tricky Triangle in 51.356 seconds at 175.247 mph in the second round of qualifying.
The Mayetta, N.J. native will be attempting to sweep both NASCAR Cup Series races this season at Pocono Raceway, after taking the checkered flag here June 3 in the Pocono 400.
“We missed it a little bit there,” said Truex. “We thought we could pick up from our first round time and we just didn’t pick up enough there in Round 2. We made some adjustments on the No. 78 Auto-Owners Insurance Toyota between rounds. I just slipped a little in Turn 1 and lost some time and then it was hard to make up time from there.”
Truex was fifth in the first round with a lap of 51.381 at 175.162.
Kevin Harvick won the pole. The balance of the top-12 qualifiers were Kyle Busch, Daniel Suarez, Kyle Larson, Joey Logano, William Byron, Denny Hamlin, Erik Jones, Brad Keselowski, Jamie McMurray, Chase Elliott, and Austin Dillon.
Coverage of Sunday’s 160-lap, 400-mile race will air live beginning at noon MT (2 p.m. ET) on NBCSN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90 and MRN.