Jeff Gordon was a little bit surprised that he won the pole for the Aarons 499, at Talladega at 178.248mph, as his three teammates, Jimmie Johnson, Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt Jr. claimed the second through fourth spots.
"I just had no idea what to expect and neither did the team. Certainly didn't expect to go out and be one, two, three, and four with Hendrick like that. A little bit of redemption I guess for being second at Daytona and not on the pole," said Jeff Gordon upon winning his 70th Sprint Cup pole.
NASCAR officials reduced the size of the restrictor plate opening, slightly, from Daytona’s which resulted in slower speeds.
"It felt like I could walk faster than I was going out there. The one thing that I mentioned to NASCAR when we were talking about it. It is the proper restrictor plate to be on the car for the race. To me, that qualifying session was just a snoozer. It is because we are doing two laps by ourselves doing 177 mph. That had nothing to do with me. Anybody could drive that car at that speed."
Chevrolet cars took seven of the top ten spots.
Johnson explained "with the smaller plate, maybe we found something a little faster or better that works with our combination. With the plates on the cars in general the power is so different here than what we tune with and have to adjust and work with. But maybe the smaller plate fits our combination here better. The competition is tough out there, regardless of manufacturer. All teams seem to have plenty of power. And those Fords at the last race weren’t slouches at all. I think on the bigger track stuff, the unrestricted stuff, they’ve got plenty. We’ve got plenty but we always want to have more."
David Ragan’s Ford, in seventh, was the highest placed non-Chevy in the line-up.
"I just had no idea what to expect and neither did the team. Certainly didn't expect to go out and be one, two, three, and four with Hendrick like that. A little bit of redemption I guess for being second at Daytona and not on the pole," said Jeff Gordon upon winning his 70th Sprint Cup pole.
NASCAR officials reduced the size of the restrictor plate opening, slightly, from Daytona’s which resulted in slower speeds.
"It felt like I could walk faster than I was going out there. The one thing that I mentioned to NASCAR when we were talking about it. It is the proper restrictor plate to be on the car for the race. To me, that qualifying session was just a snoozer. It is because we are doing two laps by ourselves doing 177 mph. That had nothing to do with me. Anybody could drive that car at that speed."
Chevrolet cars took seven of the top ten spots.
Johnson explained "with the smaller plate, maybe we found something a little faster or better that works with our combination. With the plates on the cars in general the power is so different here than what we tune with and have to adjust and work with. But maybe the smaller plate fits our combination here better. The competition is tough out there, regardless of manufacturer. All teams seem to have plenty of power. And those Fords at the last race weren’t slouches at all. I think on the bigger track stuff, the unrestricted stuff, they’ve got plenty. We’ve got plenty but we always want to have more."
David Ragan’s Ford, in seventh, was the highest placed non-Chevy in the line-up.