Carl Edwards lassos his first pole of the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season with a pole at the 1.5-mile Texas Motor Speedway with a speed of 194.609 mph. Joey Logano will start second followed by Martin Truex Jr., Chase Elliott, and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. This was Edwards second pole at Texas Motor Speedway in 23 starts at the track, and his 17th pole in his racing career.

 

“I don’t know if there was any benefit (going out first each session), but that was our plan, to go out first. Fortunately, my car is very fast. This is huge deal for us to get our first pole of the year. That car is great and we’re having a great time,” Edwards said, It feels like this downforce package lets me go in the corner and really get a feel of the tire. Hopefully, the race goes just as well.”

Joey Logano, who qualified in a tie with Martin Truex Jr., but won the tiebreaker, was pumped about the no. 22 Team Penske Ford’s qualifying effort. “Overall, proud of the effort. I felt like, going asleep last night, that we could quite possibly be on the pole today. We came close. Every round we were definitely pretty fast. We were really good in one and two the first two rounds, three and four, we lost quite a bit of speed to the 19.”

 

Texas Motor Speedway was sitting in the sun all day. When the first round of qualifying began, many drivers decided to take to the track at once in order to get a fast speed. According to team radio communications, Jimmie Johnson told his team that they are on a completely different racetrack compared to the first practice session the night before. Debris stopped the countdown clock with eight and a half minutes remaining for what appeared to be a scoring transponder. This allowed for teams to have more time to cool down their engines. Harvick barely made it into the second round by three one thousandths of a second. Brian Vickers was the fastest in this round with a speed of 196.015 mph. A few notables missing the cut for round two were Paul Menard (25), Danica Patrick (26), and Clint Bowyer (36).

 

According to the Fox Sports 1 broadcast, the track temperature cooled down nearly 15 degrees. Carl Edwards won the second round with a speed of 195.214 mph. Trevor Bayne was the driver on the bubble, but was able advance to third round. Many notable drivers missed the third round: Brian Vickers (13), Kyle Busch (15), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (16), and Kevin Harvick (22). Notable drivers who advanced were Ryan Blaney (5), Chase Elliott (7), and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (10). 

Caleb Whisler
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