Kurt Busch continues pole run

Date published : 11 Jun 2011 - 18:53:35

Kurt Busch claimed his second consecutive pole position of the year and the third in a row for Penske Racing in qualifying for Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Pocono.Despite having crashed his primary car during the final practice session on Friday after losing control at Turn 2, the former Cup champion surprised with an impressive flying lap of 52.452 seconds, at an average speed of 171.579 mph, that allowed him to bump four-time Pocono winner Jeff Gordon from pole position.Busch was the 40th car in the order on the first weekend of a tweaked qualifying system, the running order now determined by the inverted results of the first practice session of the weekend, including both the top 35 in the owners' standings and those having to qualify on speed.Those who were faster than the Penske driver in practice were unable to match him for pace later on their flying laps, with Richard Childress Racing's Paul Menard coming closest while placing beside Busch on the front row of the grid."If it was raining we'd be starting last and luckily the weather held up and we're up on pole," said Busch. "To pull that back-up [car] out, that's a pole-winning car!"That's something you wouldn't really hear about back in the day. It would be 'alright, you're going to have to struggle through the weekend, it's not the best of pieces'. It's great that we have that higher quality-control within our system."Yesterday, honestly, I missed my shift point and it got me into trouble. I was trying different things, changing the rear gear, changing the transmission, and just being in a different zone of elements of changes..."Today, we went right back after it and I was aggressive and I used the same procedure as I did yesterday at practice where I wrecked to get the pole today."The drivers with the best Pocono records will start from the second row of the grid with Gordon and Denny Hamlin starting third and fourth, while Furniture Row's Regan Smith, who held provisional pole for a while, rounded out the top five ahead of points leader Carl Edwards.Mike Skinner crashed on his second qualifying lap after losing control out of Turn 1 and ended up missing the race. JJ Yeley was fastest of the non-guaranteed drivers in 22nd, while Sam Hornish Jr was 26th on his Cup return for Front Row Motorsports.