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10th
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A few timely adjustments by his crew chief and a cooling track helped Kyle Busch win the pole in Phoenix at a record speed.
"Dave (Rogers, crew chief) made some really good adjustments there from qualifying practice to now and the car drove exactly like it needed to for those two laps," said Busch after notching his 10th career pole, second of the season and second at PIR.
Busch averaged 138.766 mph at the reconfigured one-mile oval topping Martin Truex Jr. at 138.217 mph. Denny Hamlin completed a top-three sweep by Toyotas at 137.578mph.
In the all-important Chase Brad Keselowski qualified 14th, ten spots ahead of series points leader Jimmie Johnson who is down in 24th. This was the third time, out of the eight previous Chase races, that Keselowski out qualified the five-time champion.
Johnson went out fairly early in the line of qualifiers when the sun was out and the track was hotter and slicker.
"Wasn't so good but we've been fighting a little bit in qualifying trim," Johnson said.
"But, we've got a great baseline race setup to go off of. For me it was really turn one. The glare was pretty bad getting into the turn then getting the power down was tough for me up off of (turn) two. (Turns) three and four were pretty good I felt like on both of my laps, but I struggled oddly enough down there this time."
Keselowski said that his job was "running to win, whatever that means," he said. "Win the race and things become a lot easier. You don't have to worry about those things."
"It was good lap -- definitely a good lap for our NAPA Toyota," said the second-place Truex. "We had a really good practice today. We had good speed all day long. Obviously, the late draw was something that we knew was going to be big.
"We were fortunate enough to be able to get that and go out late, put down a good lap. It wasn't good enough, obviously, but nonetheless a good starting spot for Sunday and hopefully we'll be able to turn that into something big."
Hamlin agreed that the later a driver went the better chance a driver had.
"It was treacherous, for sure. It seemed like if you went later it was definitely an advantage to qualifying. But -- just really the track and tire combination -- it's really hard. So, it takes a long time for it to get going."
"Dave (Rogers, crew chief) made some really good adjustments there from qualifying practice to now and the car drove exactly like it needed to for those two laps," said Busch after notching his 10th career pole, second of the season and second at PIR.
Busch averaged 138.766 mph at the reconfigured one-mile oval topping Martin Truex Jr. at 138.217 mph. Denny Hamlin completed a top-three sweep by Toyotas at 137.578mph.
In the all-important Chase Brad Keselowski qualified 14th, ten spots ahead of series points leader Jimmie Johnson who is down in 24th. This was the third time, out of the eight previous Chase races, that Keselowski out qualified the five-time champion.
Johnson went out fairly early in the line of qualifiers when the sun was out and the track was hotter and slicker.
"Wasn't so good but we've been fighting a little bit in qualifying trim," Johnson said.
"But, we've got a great baseline race setup to go off of. For me it was really turn one. The glare was pretty bad getting into the turn then getting the power down was tough for me up off of (turn) two. (Turns) three and four were pretty good I felt like on both of my laps, but I struggled oddly enough down there this time."
Keselowski said that his job was "running to win, whatever that means," he said. "Win the race and things become a lot easier. You don't have to worry about those things."
"It was good lap -- definitely a good lap for our NAPA Toyota," said the second-place Truex. "We had a really good practice today. We had good speed all day long. Obviously, the late draw was something that we knew was going to be big.
"We were fortunate enough to be able to get that and go out late, put down a good lap. It wasn't good enough, obviously, but nonetheless a good starting spot for Sunday and hopefully we'll be able to turn that into something big."
Hamlin agreed that the later a driver went the better chance a driver had.
"It was treacherous, for sure. It seemed like if you went later it was definitely an advantage to qualifying. But -- just really the track and tire combination -- it's really hard. So, it takes a long time for it to get going."