MENCS: Brad Keselowski Captures Kobalt 400 Pole

Brad Keselowski will start on the pole at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in Sunday’s Kobalt 400. Keselowski, last weekend’s winner at Atlanta Motor Speedway and defending winner at Las Vegas, posted a lap of 27.881 seconds, 193.680 mph. in the final round.

In the previous rounds of knockout qualifying, Keselowski sat second on the speed chart in round one. In round two, the 2012 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion sat seventh on the board in his No. 2 Miller Lite Ford.

Starting beside Keselowski on Sunday will be Martin Truex Jr. in the No. 78 Bass Pro Shops / Tracker Boats Toyota Camry. Truex sat seventh on the leaderboard in the first round and ended the second round sitting fifth on the speed chart.

“It was definitely good for us. Started out today with it feeling good right off the trailer. We ended up quickest in first practice and felt like we had a good game plan going into qualifying,” said Truex after his run. “We felt the track would probably be a little bit faster, thought it would pick up more. After the first round I think we were off a bit and made some tweaks for the second round and even more for the third. All in all to be off a little bit and come back to be just barely short of the pole was good. Really proud of the effort of my guys and felt like it was a good day at the track. I have a good feeling for the rest of the weekend and we’ll continue to work hard on our Bass Pro Toyota and see if we can go after our first win in Vegas.”

Truex, a native of New Jersey, posted a 27.913, 193.458 mph. in the final round.

Ryan Blaney will round out the top three starters in the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Toyota. Blaney sat 15th in round one and first at the end of round two.

None of the Stewart-Haas Racing cars advanced to the final round. Clint Bowyer just missed it by 0.001 seconds in his No. 14 Ford. He’ll start 13th on Sunday afternoon. Kurt Busch, who scored the Daytona 500 victory for the team nearly two weekends ago, will start 17th on the board. Kevin Harvick, who dominated the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 last weekend at Atlanta, will start 19th on the board in the No. 4 Ford. Danica Patrick will round out the SHR machines with a 28th-place start on Sunday.

With 39 cars on the entry list, nobody went home.

MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES

POS

DRIVER

TIME BEHIND

1

Brad Keselowski

LEADER

2

Martin Truex Jr.

-0.032

3

Ryan Blaney

-0.039

4

Matt Kenseth

-0.042

5

Kyle Larson

-0.075

6

Joey Logano

-0.078

7

Kasey Kahne

-0.089

8

Erik Jones

-0.190

9

Kyle Busch

-0.191

10

Jamie McMurray

-0.191

11

Daniel Suarez #

-0.249

12

Chase Elliott

-0.385

Brett Winningham
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