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Hamlin Steals Pole In Cup Qualifying At Homestead

Denny Hamlin all smiles after garnering his first HMS pole. [Joe Jennings Photo]

Denny Hamlin all smiles after garnering his first HMS pole. [Joe Jennings Photo]

Homestead, Fla. – In the waning seconds of qualifications at the Homestead-Miami Speedway, Denny Hamlin surpassed the speed of rival Joey Logano to gain the pole for Sunday’s Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Hamlin careened around the 1.5-mile oval at a speed of 176.655 miles per hour to earn his third Coors Light Pole Award of the season.

Driving the FedEx Toyota, Hamlin claimed his 23rd Sprint Cup pole in 362 races and the first at Homestead.

“Our car has been fast all day, and it was fast in race trim,” Hamlin commented. “We didn’t make any qualifying runs until these three (qualifying) sessions. I am pretty optimistic about Sunday and sitting in the back of room listening to Jeff (Gordon), I thought about how awesome it would be to win in his final race. No disrespect to him, but it would awesome to win his final race. Actually, I hope he finishes third behind my teammate Kyle Busch.”

Logano was a tick of the watch slower at 176.263 mph.

Busch led the four Chase for the Sprint Cup finalists, copping the third starting position with Jeff Gordon timing fifth, Martin Truex Jr. 11th and defending champion Kevin Harvick 13th.

“That’s a good run for this Camry,” Busch said. “With Denny on the pole, that’s good company for me to be following. I am happy with the way we’ve got it right now.”

Gordon was pleased with the final outcome. “I need three clutch laps like that to close this race out on Sunday,” the retiring driver said. “Just more disappointing in myself the first one. We had an interesting day. We rolled off first off pit road in race trim, and when I was making my good lap there on new tires, cars were getting up to speed on the back straightaway, so we were really far down the timesheet. The car actually felt like it had good speed. The second run I was really impressed with, and then we went to go into qualifying trim, and it rained.

“I just didn’t push the car hard enough (on first run), didn’t realize how much more grip was going to be out there compared to practice, and I just wasn’t aggressive enough. The car was fine. The car was good. I just needed to go faster mainly through 1 and 2.

“I really did not think we could go faster than that. I didn’t think the tires would have it in them. The fact that we were able to advance to the second round was huge. Kind of got me motivated and pumped up after that, and we made some adjustments, some big adjustments on the car to get the tires hot and air pressures start changing you know you’ve got to adjust the balance. The team did an excellent, excellent job of that in those last couple laps.”

Regarding Sunday, Gordon added, “I’m anticipating it to be truly insane. I’m going to take some advice from a six time champion and play some music and tune it out. The good thing is that there’s a schedule, and I like a regimented schedule, and John Edwards has always done a great job. He knows what keeps me focusing and keeps me from kind of getting agitated or allowing some of that stuff to get to me.”

As usual, Truex seemed unflappable. “It was a decent day for us,” he commented. “We never really could get the balance of the car just like we wanted. But for us really qualifying hasn’t been our strong suit on these type tracks. I thought 11th was a decent effort. Obviously, we wanted to be better, but all in all, it’s not about where you start here.”

Said the disappointed Harvick, who topped everyone in Round 1, “Yeah, Round 1 was really good for us and then we went to Round 2, and it got really tight. You know, we just never really recovered from what we did in the first round to make it repeat. All in all, I just think our balance was too tight. We’ll work on the race car and go from there.”

Ryan Newman qualified fourth, youthful Ryan Blaney sixth, Carl Edwards seventh, Brad Keselowski eighth, Dale Earnhardt Jr. ninth and Austin Dillon 10th.

Matt Kenseth will start 19th with Tony Stewart far back in 36th, one spot behind teammate Danica Patrick.

45 drivers took a timed run and failing to make the starting field were Jeb Burton and Reed Sorenson.

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