ALL-STAR: Ragan On Showdown Pole

Sprint Cup

ALL-STAR: Ragan On Showdown Pole

David Ragan will try to race his way into the NASCAR Sprint All-Star race...

Tom Jensen | Posted May 20, 2011 Concord, NC

David Ragan, driver of the No. 6 UPS Ford, celebrates setting the pole position during qualifying for the NASCAR Sprint Showdown at Charlotte Motor Speedway on May 20, 2011 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo: Getty Images)

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David Ragan won the pole for tomorrow night’s Sprint Showdown, the last-chance race that will allow the top-two finishers to advance to the Sprint All-Star Race.

Ragan blistered the 1.5-mile Charlotte Motor Speedway quad oval with a lap of 191.680 miles per hour in his No. 6 Roush Fenway Racing Ford.

“We needed a little bit of momentum back on our side after the last couple of weeks,” said Ragan.

AJ Allmendinger ran a lap of 191.469 mph in his No. 43 Richard Petty Motorsports Ford, enough to put him on the outside of Row 1 for Saturday’s race and give the Blue Oval Boys a sweep of the front row.

Paul Menard was third in his No. 27 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet. He’ll be flanked by the No. 2 Penske Racing Dodge of Brad Keselowski.

Jeff Burton and Marcos Ambrose will start from Row 3, followed by Martin Truex Jr., David Gilliland, Joey Logano and Brian Vickers.

Both the Sprint Showdown winner and runner-up will make the All-Star field, along with the winner of the Sprint Fan Vote. That means there will be 21 drivers racing for the $1 million All-Star purse.

SPEED will have full coverage of both races, beginning at 7 p.m. ET Saturday night.

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100.

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