Avondale, Ariz. – Jamie McMurray was relieved after Jeff Gordon easily took the pole from him Thursday at Phoenix International Raceway.
“I guess trying to find the positive in it, it wasn’t even close,” McMurray said after taking the outside front-row spot for Saturday’s Subway Fresh Fit 500.
“I hit the wall at both ends and I was sliding all over the place. There was nothing else I could do. I hate it when you get beat by a hundredth of a second or something like that. There was no question about this one.”
McMurray, driving a Ford for Fenway Roush Racing, was sitting in the top spot with a lap of 132.577 mph when Gordon drove his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet onto the 1-mile tri-oval in the fading light and cooling temperatures of late afternoon.
The four-time NASCAR champion left no doubt about this one, turning a lap of 133.136 that even surprised him.
“After Jamie put up his lap, I told my guys, ‘Sorry. That’s four-tenths. We don’t have that much.’ But we did,” Gordon said. “Right near the end of practice, we weren’t very happy with the car and we decided to make some major adjustments – I mean some major adjustments. It was way more than we normally do for qualifying.”
Gordon, who was 37th of the 50 cars that made qualifying attempts, got the benefit of a cooler track surface, but none of the other drivers who went late could keep him from winning his fourth pole of the season and the 59th of his career. That tied him with three-time champion Darrell Waltrip for fourth on the career list. The qualifying session marked the end of the first official day for NASCAR’s new Car of Tomorrow on a track bigger than a half-mile.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. led qualifying for a while, but wound up 15th.
Meanwhile, Earnhardt said an online report that he has been offered ownership in DEI is “news to me.” After qualifying, he was asked about reports he has been offered 51 percent ownership of the company started by his late father.
“I don’t know anything about that,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “As far as I know, there’s been nothing new in the last week or more.”
