Penalty Sends Truex Jr. to Rear of the Field
The Furniture Row Racing driver posted the 38th fastest qualifying speed at Talladega Superspeedway. A short time after qualifying, Truex's No. 78 Chevrolet was penalized by NASCAR for failing to meet the necessary height requirement. The penalty will result in Truex taking a provisional starting position at the rear of the field for Sunday's Aaron's 499.
"After positing the fastest practice speed yesterday, today's result and infraction were disappointing to say the least," said Truex. "That's the bad news. The good news is that we have a fast car for tomorrow's race, and as we have said many times, qualifying really doesn't mean that much here."
The pole winner was Brian Scott (49.293/198.390). Rounding out the top-10 in order were: Paul Menard, AJ Allmendinger, Casey Mears, Austin Dillon, Ryan Newman, Danica Patrick, Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch and Carl Edwards.
Sunday's Sprint Cup Series race will be broadcast on FOX, beginning with a 30-minute prerace show at 11:30 a.m. CT (12:30 p.m. ET).