Today at 1:00 p.m. ET the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series at Talladega will get underway on Fox, in a high-profile race that can be live streamed for free by clicking this link. Sitting on the pole will be Brian Scott, who was just as surprised as anyone at his lofty perch.
"Who would have thought that, huh?" Scott said after his Richard Childress Racing team's qualifying strategy paid off. He and A.J. Allmendinger were the beneficiaries of a nice strategy to surge toward the finish near the end of the allotted time.
"It was just a great plan by RCR, getting all the RCR alliance cars working together," Allmendinger said. "We worked on that (in practice) and felt like we all had great speed. Ryan was the guinea pig for all of us and timed it right, and that last session, it was just basically who was going to wait the longest to go out there."
The runner-up, Paul Menard, said "The qualifying format, I think there are good tracks for it and bad tracks for it, and this is definitely a great track for it. We had a plan and we tried to stick to the plan as best we could. Ryan, we put the burden on him to decide when to go and where to go, and the rest of us held it in line. ECR top-six and RCR cars all up there is pretty exciting."
Winning the pole is a major opportunity for Scott, who finished respectably at the Daytona 500 and can establish his standing at one of the sport's fastest tracks. "I've got that dreaded yellow (rookie) stripe on the bumper, and that's going to make people run away from me like the plague," Scott said.
Joey Logano, NASCAR qualifier ace, had a streak of eight consecutive final round qualifiers. "It's not by a good car or not, it's just by strategy," Logano said. "We put a lot of work and effort into keeping that streak alive. It's unfortunate."
1 Brian Scott Chevrolet 198.290 mph
2 Paul Menard Chevrolet 197.888 mph
3 AJ Allmendinger Chevrolet 197.704 mph
4 Casey Mears Chevrolet 197.370 mph
5 Austin Dillon Chevrolet 197.362 mph
6 Ryan Newman Chevrolet 197.297 mph
7 Danica Patrick Chevrolet 194.995 mph
8 Kevin Harvick Chevrolet 194.393 mph
9 Kurt Busch Chevrolet 193.619 mph
10 Carl Edwards Ford 193.615 mph
11 Jeff Gordon Chevrolet 193.486 mph
12 Tony Stewart Chevrolet 188.958 mph
13 Brad Keselowski Ford 194.963 mph
14 Michael McDowell Ford 194.959 mph
15 Aric Almirola Ford 194.911 mph
16 Joey Logano Ford 194.880 mph
17 Michael Annett Chevrolet 194.098 mph
18 Brian Vickers Toyota 194.035 mph
19 Kyle Busch Toyota 193.541 mph
20 Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet 193.478 mph
21 Matt Kenseth Toyota 193.458 mph
22 Reed Sorenson Chevrolet 190.890 mph
23 Trevor Bayne Ford 190.575 mph
24 Ryan Truex Toyota 197.913 mph
25 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Ford 197.908 mph
26 Marcos Ambrose Ford 197.835 mph
27 Clint Bowyer Toyota 197.806 mph
28 Michael Waltrip Toyota 197.806 mph
29 Kyle Larson Chevrolet 197.770 mph
30 Dale Earnhardt Jr.Chevrolet 197.765 mph
31 Cole Whitt Toyota 197.721 mph
32 Jamie McMurray Chevrolet 197.443 mph
33 Alex Bowman Toyota 197.403 mph
34 Denny Hamlin Toyota 197.378 mph
35 Greg Biffle Ford 197.244 mph
36 Josh Wise Ford 197.029 mph
37 Terry Labonte Ford 196.746 mph
38 Justin Allgaier Chevrolet 196.230 mph
39 David Ragan Ford 195.732 mph
40 David Gilliland Ford 194.880 mph
41 Landon Cassill Chevrolet 194.389 mph
42 Kasey Kahne Chevrolet N/A
43 Martin Truex Jr. Chevrolet N/A
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