Ageless Wonder Matt Kenseth Takes All Star Pole

Matt Kenseth

Amy Henderson/AR1

Friday night's qualifying session for Saturday's 34rd-running of the Monster Energy NASCAR All Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway was all about the veteran drivers sticking it to the young guns as 46-year-old Matt Kenseth secured the pole the event to lead a Ford sweep of the front row.

In just his second start back behind the wheel after sitting on the sidelines for the first four months of the season, Kenseth put down a lap of 127.644 second (126.915 mph) to kick his teammate Ricky Stenhouse from the top spot. Clint Bowyer, Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex, Jr. made up the rest of the top five qualifiers.

Roush-Fenway's No. 6 Ford Fusion was a late addition to the all star field after the team announced late last month that Kenseth was returning to fold. Kenseth was eligible for the race by virtue of his victory at Phoenix two weeks before the end of last season.

The All Star pole was the third for Kenseth – his last one coming in 2007 – who was the 2004 winner of the event. Kenseth scored his first-career Cup Series victory here in the 2000 Coca-Cola 600, and helped lead the charge from Ford taking the top four spots.

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"] "The car drove good," Kenseth said. "It seemed fine. It was our first laps on the track today with all the rain, and Ricky (Stenhouse) was a huge help to me going out early and helping me with my braking on pit road and his spotter up there helping me. That was a big help to get us up there like that.

"To have both cars on the front row is really a tribute to these guys—the pit stops, obviously the engines and all the restrictor-plate stuff. This was more about the car and the team than it was about me."

"The handling wasn't much of an issue with restrictor plates so I couldn't really mess that up too bad. Ricky helped me a lot getting on pit road. It was a good smooth pit stop and pretty decent transition on and off pit road and the cars laps were pretty fast as well. I was proud of everybody the way they executed today with no practice really and having a good pit stop to put both of our cars on the front row."

The unique qualifying format for the all star race includes two laps, followed by a four tire pit stop – with no pit road speed limit – followed by a third lap.

Kenseth's crew was one of several that opted to pit the left side of the car first since the crew was not permitted to come over the wall until the car came to a complete stop. The strategy helped his crew races through their stop in 16.1 seconds – the fasted stop of the night.

Several drivers took advantage of the no-pit-road-speed rule to pick up some time on pit road, with Ryan Newman and Clint Bowyer flying down pit road at better than 150 mph, while Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson – the last driver to take to the track – lost time on their stop after overshooting their pit stalls.

"I had everybody to look at and see where they all were braking and I thought I would go a little deeper than most," said Larson. " I thought Jamie (McMurray) was braking about at the opening we were at and that is where I went and it wasn't even close to getting to the stall."

By far the biggest challenge facing the 17 drivers in the All Star field wasn't just getting the cars whoaed up after flying down pit road, it was the lack of practice in what are essentially brand-new setups for these drivers.

Among the unique elements in the all star race itself will be a new high-drag aero package on the cars and restricted engines, which will reduce performance by more than 250 horsepower.

However, due to the persistent rain showers that moved through the area, most teams got little, if any, practice time on Friday, leaving the drivers and crew chief alike scratching their heads on how to make the new package work.

"I've never been in anything like this. This is way different," said Jimmie Johnson of the new rules package. "I did have a few laps in a late-model stock car years and years ago, with the scale of this track and the power and just the way the car drives it kind of reminds me of that. Everything I've ever raced had way too much power, so this is a much different environment.

"Our stop was unfortunately a little slow, but we are all learning and just rolling the dice right now. Nobody knows what to expect."

Due to the lack of practice of Friday, NASCAR has added an additional practice session to the schedule on Saturday morning.

"It is a coin flip on practice for me," said Kenseth. "I could tell you after the race is over if I wish we had practice or not. It might be nice to have a little practice to work through some stuff and see if handling will be a factor and if you need to work on your car. The flip side of that is everyone is in the same boat and a lot of times when you don't have practice like that some guys are really going to miss it and some guys are going to hit it and it mixes up the field. I am okay either way.

"I guess if it was 100-percent my choice I would get a little practice around some other cars and see what we have to work on for the race."

RACE LINEUP

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