BRISTOL, Tenn. — Jimmie Johnson crossed winning at Bristol Motor Speedway off his to-do list in March. Now he’ll try to make it two in a row after starting from the pole in tonight’s Irwin Tools Night Race.
The four-time defending NASCAR Sprint Cup champion turned a lap at 123.475 mph in Friday’s qualifying to put his Chevrolet on the front row.
“Everybody wants to win here,” Johnson said. “We all know how hard I fought this track myself, my own demons, whatever it is that we finally got over in the spring to win here. I would love to go out and win again.”
Johnson bettered Carl Edwards, who earned the second starting spot with a lap at 122.937 in a Ford. His hold on the pole was for just a few minutes — Johnson ran his lap two cars after Edwards’ attempt.
“I was on it for 15.54 seconds or however long it took Jimmie to run that thing,” Edwards said.
Joey Logano qualified third, and also had a brief time atop the speed chart before Edwards and then Johnson knocked him into the second row.
“When Carl ran his lap, he beat me by just a little bit and I was thinking, ‘Oh man, it would stink to get beat by that much,’ ” Logano said. “But Jimmie ran a really fast lap. I don’t think I had that much in me.”
Tony Stewart qualified fourth, and David Reutimann bounced back from a bout with food poisoning to qualify fifth.
Busch makes it 2-for-2 at Bristol.
Kyle Busch has moved one step closer to sweeping the weekend at Bristol.
Busch won the Nationwide Series race to give him two victories in two races there. He won the Truck Series race this week and will try to win the Sprint Cup Series race tonight.
Busch had a lengthy battle with Brad Keselowski for the lead and passed the Nationwide series points leader with 31 laps to go.
But contact after the pass caused Busch to slide back to second. He immediately caught Keselowski, tapped him back, and caused Keselowski to wreck. Keselowski finished 14th.
Footnotes.
JR Motorsports expects to field a Nationwide Series car next season for Danica Patrick. JRM co-owner Kelley Earnhardt said she’s waiting for the IndyCar schedule to be released to determine how many races Patrick, whose best finish on the circuit was 24th at Chicago last month, will drive in NASCAR. She’s running a 13-race schedule this year for JRM.
• Carl Edwards said he has committed to racing the full Nationwide Series schedule next season, even if he’s not eligible to race for the series championship.
