Denny Hamlin Leads JGR Sweep in Bristol Qualifying

Denny Hamlin led a Joe Gibb Racing sweep of the top three positions on his way to capturing the pole with a record-breaking run in Friday’s qualifying sessions for tomorrow night’s Irwin Tools Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway.

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Denny Hamlin turned a lap of 14.602 seconds (131.407 mph) in the third and final session to knock his teammate Kyle Busch of the top spot and lock up his second Coors Light Pole Award of the season. Hamlin’s record-setting lap easily eclipsed the previous mark of 131.362 mph set by Kevin Harvick at this same race just one year ago.

Kyle Busch held on for the second spot, earning his best start since taking the pole at Pocono three weeks ago. Carl Edwards grabbed the third qualifying spot, giving JGR a sweep of the top three for the second week in a row. David Ragan and Joey Logano rounded out the top five.

Hamlin’s pole-winning effort was the 22^nd of his career and third in 20 starts at Bristol, where he has one career victory – winning the this same event in 2012.

“It looks like I really got the car working the way I needed to there in that final practice. A testament to these guys and what Dave Rogers (crew chief) did for us," said Hamlin. “Our FedEx Ground Camry obviously was very fast that last round and Dave made the great adjustments to it to pick up the speed and I think that hopefully we’ll have something that we can race with them tomorrow night."

Kyle Busch rolled into Friday’s qualifying session after setting the time to beat in the final practice session. Busch then led the opening round of qualifying and finished second behind his brother Kurt in the second round, but didn’t quite have enough to beat out Hamlin for the pole.

“It’s a JGR top-three there," said Busch. “Great effort for everyone on this Skittles Camry, these guys are doing a great job. I couldn’t be more pleased with just everybody’s effort.

“We were just a little too free there in the second segment and the first run of the third segment. It’s a little edgy up there so you try not to push too hard, but still make a good lap and come back safely. Then there at the end we tried a ‘Hail Mary’ and it worked, it picked us up speed, but it didn’t pick us up that last spot."

Ragan’s fourth-place starting spot will be his fourth top-five start of the season, and it couldn’t came at a better time after finding out he’ll be looking for a new ride next year with the announcement that Michael Waltrip Racing will be folding at the end of the season.

Ragan, who has driven for three teams this season – including nine races filling in the injured Kyle Busch – is hoping to race his way to just his second top-five finish of the year.

“We’re pretty happy with that starting spot, but I’ll always wonder if we didn’t have to run so many laps that second round if we would’ve had a shot at the pole," said Ragan, who ran a total of 12 laps in the three rounds of qualifying. “I really thought we had a shot at the pole and just didn’t have enough speed that second round. I thought we had enough speed to advance to the third round pretty easy and we had to run a few extra laps and I think those extra three or four laps on our tires probably cost us a shot at the pole."

Brad Keselowski, Kevin Harvick, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Clint Bowyer and Jimmie Johnson made of the rest of the top ten qualifiers.

Missing the race were Travis Kvapil, Jeb Burton and Reed Sorenson.

Five-time Bristol winner Jeff Gordon, starting in his 46^th and final race at the half-mile oval, will roll off 24^th driving a retro “Rainbow Warriors" DuPont paint scheme on his no. 24 Chevrolet. The track recently honored Gordon by naming a section of seats on the backstretch the “Jeff Gordon Terrace"

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