Truex Jr. Wins Pole at Martinsville

Martin Truex, Jr. wins his fifth pole of the season

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Even though he's no longer contending for the Sprint Cup championship, Martin Truex, Jr. is not about to give up on having a winning season.

Truex, Jr. shook off last weekend's disappointing elimination from the Chase for the Sprint Cup and raced his way to the pole for Sunday's Goody's Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway, marking his second straight pole position in the last two weeks.

Truex, Jr. was third and second in the first two rounds of qualifying before claiming the top spot in the final round with a lap of 19.282 second (98.206 mph) to beat out last week's winner Joey Logano for the pole in the opening race of the third round of the Chase.

The qualifying-winning effort was the fifth of the year for Truex, Jr. and his career-best start at the .526 mi oval.

"It's definitely a good day," said Truex, Jr. "It's fun to be back at the race track with some positive things happening. First pole here at Martinsville so it feels good, it's a cool accomplishment and this track is so difficult and so tough.

"I would love to get my first grandfather clock. And a little bit after last week, this helps a little bit. All in all, just proud of the guys for coming here with a game plan and executing."

Truex, Jr. sat on the pole for last weekend's race at Talladega, looking to give his title hopes a shot in the arm with a decent finish, but ended his day in the garage with a blown engine and was eliminated from the Chase along with Chase Elliott, Austin Dillon and former champion Brad Keselowski.

Now, the best Truex, Jr. can hope for is a ninth-place finish in the points, and he and his team plan to do everything they can to win out for the next four races.

"As soon as we got together in the garage in Talladega – I literally pulled in there, got out and we all got together and said, ‘Let's go win Martinsville, what do we have to do to win Martinsville?'" said Truex, Jr. "I think our attitude just instantly changed to, okay, we're out of it, there's nothing we can do about it now.

"As bad as it hurts that we're not in the Chase anymore and we aren't going to win our first championship, we want to go out on a high note, we want to go out with momentum and we want to go out with a lot of confidence for next year."

Joey Logano scored his fifth-straight Martinsville front row start

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Logano, who secured a spot in the Round of 8 with a win at Talladega, held onto the second position with a lap of 19.290 seconds (98.165 mph). Follow Chase contender Jimmie Johnson (19.354, 97.840mph) took third, followed by AJ Allmendinger (19.376, 97.729mph) and Chase Elliott (19.382, 97.699 mph).

Logano's outside pole marks his fifth-straight front-row start at Martinsville, breaking a streak of three straight Martinsville poles, and although he once had a streak of three top-five finishes in a row here, he hasn't finished better than 11^th in his last two Martinsville starts.

Of course, one of those bad finishes was courtesy of Matt Kenseth driving Logano into the wall last November, something Logano hopes to avoid this time around

"Starting up front is important here at Martinsville. We've proven that before," said Logano. "We'll be able to get a good pit stall, which is a lot of opportunity to take advantage of that here. It gives us a good start to get a good rhythm into this long race and get our car tuned up to where we want to, and get the grandfather clock when we're done. We're not in the business of getting poles, we're in the business of winning races. A lot of times that takes winning the pole, but in general we want to win the race."

Other Chase contenders in the top include Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Carl Edwards, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch running seventh, eighth and ninth, respectively. Matt Kenseth – the fourth JGR entry – qualified 17^th, while Kevin Harvick qualified 20^th. Kurt Busch was the lowest qualifier of the eight drivers since in the title hunt, starting in 23^rd.

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