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Kyle Busch Charges To Brickyard 400 Pole

Kyle Busch, polesitter for the Brantley Gilbert Big Machine Brickyard 400. [John Wiedemann Photo]

Kyle Busch, polesitter for the Brantley Gilbert Big Machine Brickyard 400. [John Wiedemann Photo]

by Dan Margetta

Speedway, Ind., July 22 — Kyle Busch moved a step closer in his quest to win three Brantley Gilbert Big Machine Brickyard 400’s in a row as he drove to the pole position Saturday evening at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Busch toured the famed 2.5 mile Indy oval in 48.051 seconds at an average speed of 187.301 mph during the third and final round to secure the top starting spot at a circuit where passing is at a premium and track position is a big advantage.

“We obviously had a really fast car here this weekend and we only focused on race trim stuff there in the abbreviated practices we had this morning,” Busch stated following his pole-winning run, “The guys did a great job and we are just trying to work on the handle for what the race is going to be like later on tomorrow. I felt like we did a pretty good job on that and I wasn’t sure anything about qualifying but the guys did a good job listening to what our teammates had and what set ups they had and they put that in our car and it was pretty fast.”

2003 Brickyard 400 winner Kevin Harvick will share the front row with Busch after turning in a qualifying effort at 186.332 mph and 2010 Brickyard 400 winner Jamie McMurray will start third after timing in at 186.274 mph.

“For us I felt like in turn one I just got a little bit too loose and slid the back of the car from the center out of the corner and probably gave up a little bit too much in turn two,” Harvick said after his run, “Our goal was to run the same lap in every round and we accomplished that and where it fell, it fell, and today it fell second.”

Defending Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion and four-time Brickyard 400 winner Jimmie Johnson will start fourth and early morning practice leader Denny Hamlin qualified fifth.

Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series point leader Martin Truex Jr. will start sixth followed by Joey Logano in seventh while 2013 Brickyard 400 winner Ryan Newman, Erik Jones, and Ryan Blaney rounded out the top ten qualifiers.

Brad Keselowski and Kurt Busch completed the final round qualifiers in eleventh and twelfth respectively.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. will start his final Brickyard 400 from the 13th position after just missing the cut in round two and early practice front runner Matt Kenseth will start 14th after also failing to advance from round two.

For the third week in a row Kyle Larson had issues in qualifying although this time it was on the race track as his car got extremely loose on his qualifying run, leaving him 25th overall and unable to advance out of the opening round.

Other notables who did not advance from the first round were Aric Almirola and A.J. Allmendinger, who did not complete a lap after his car got extremely loose as well on his qualifying attempt.

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