Despite winning the pole, at the Auto Club Speedway, for the second time in a row, Jamie McMurray says he was paying more attention his race setups.
“We really didn’t focus on qualifying today. We worked on developing some stuff for later in the year and for next year and we made a few qualifying runs. It wasn’t really a huge effort and honestly, it’s a completely different setup than what we were even on the pole with here in the spring."
McMurray turned a lap of 185.285 mph, in a Chevrolet, for his fourth pole of the year only seventh in his NASCAR Sprint Cup career.
Elliott Sadler was second quicker at 184.407 mph in a Ford on a track which got slicker as the day got hotter.
“Everybody knows we need this for our team,” said Sadler. “It’s one of our newer cars, we updated the body, and it’s been good since we’ve unloaded it. We felt really comfortable coming into the race this weekend. That’s a great way to start off on the weekend.”
Matt Kenseth led the Chasers in third at 184.096 mph. "We were a lot better than what we had in practice, and just like Kansas it seemed like all the Roush and RPM cars unloaded with a lot of speed,” he said.
Greg Biffle was seventh fastest and Chase point’s leader, Jimmie Johnson was eighth.
"That was the fastest lap we ran over the weekend so far, so directionally we did everything right and a top-10 starting spot will be great,” said Johnson.
Most of the Chase drivers suffered in the hot qualifying session and five were outside the top-20 including points runner-up Denny Hamlin who was 34th.
“It’s not the qualifying run we were looking for. We just missed our line a little bit in qualifying and lost time. Here, time is pretty critical,” said Hamlin who hoped that his team would find the answer in final practice on Saturday.
Mike Bliss and Patrick Carpentier, of Joliette, Quebec, failed to qualify for the race.
“We really didn’t focus on qualifying today. We worked on developing some stuff for later in the year and for next year and we made a few qualifying runs. It wasn’t really a huge effort and honestly, it’s a completely different setup than what we were even on the pole with here in the spring."
McMurray turned a lap of 185.285 mph, in a Chevrolet, for his fourth pole of the year only seventh in his NASCAR Sprint Cup career.
Elliott Sadler was second quicker at 184.407 mph in a Ford on a track which got slicker as the day got hotter.
“Everybody knows we need this for our team,” said Sadler. “It’s one of our newer cars, we updated the body, and it’s been good since we’ve unloaded it. We felt really comfortable coming into the race this weekend. That’s a great way to start off on the weekend.”
Matt Kenseth led the Chasers in third at 184.096 mph. "We were a lot better than what we had in practice, and just like Kansas it seemed like all the Roush and RPM cars unloaded with a lot of speed,” he said.
Greg Biffle was seventh fastest and Chase point’s leader, Jimmie Johnson was eighth.
"That was the fastest lap we ran over the weekend so far, so directionally we did everything right and a top-10 starting spot will be great,” said Johnson.
Most of the Chase drivers suffered in the hot qualifying session and five were outside the top-20 including points runner-up Denny Hamlin who was 34th.
“It’s not the qualifying run we were looking for. We just missed our line a little bit in qualifying and lost time. Here, time is pretty critical,” said Hamlin who hoped that his team would find the answer in final practice on Saturday.
Mike Bliss and Patrick Carpentier, of Joliette, Quebec, failed to qualify for the race.