NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
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CUP: Biffle Breaks Qualifying Record At Charlotte
Greg Biffle wins pole for fifth Chase race...
Mike Hembree  |  Posted October 11, 2012   Concord, NC
Greg Biffle admitted to being “down in the dumps” since the start of the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

On Thursday night, things were different.

Biffle turned in a track-record lap of 193.708 miles per hour to win the pole for Saturday night’s Bank of America 500, the fifth race in the Chase.

On a cool night, Biffle and the second and third qualifiers, Ryan Newman and Mark Martin, also smoked Elliott Sadler’s previous track record of 193.216 mph, which was set in 2005.

Biffle shouted in the car after being told his lap time.

“I was super excited after that lap,” Biffle said. “I drove it off into turn one further than I thought was going to work. When he (crew chief Matt Puccia) told me the lap time, I knew it was a track record, and I was pretty excited about it.”

The pole is Biffle’s first at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

It gave him a lift in a Chase that finds him in ninth place, 49 points behind leader Brad Keselowski.

“Is it too late to get back in the hunt? Probably,” Biffle said. “Mathematically, it doesn’t look good, but it’s possible. All we can do is the best we can. But they’re (Chase drivers in front of him) going to have to give us a little back to keep us in the hunt.”

Also in the top five Thursday night were Clint Bowyer and Jimmie Johnson.

In the second five were Martin Truex Jr., Matt Kenseth, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and Kasey Kahne.

Cooler track temperatures were a big boost toward Thursday night’s record runs.

“The weather was good,” Martin said. “We up the ante on every single piece of these race cars. From shocks to aero to horsepower to the drag, we continually optimize these things. When we first started running this car, it didn’t run very good. Today they run better than the cars that preceded them. We just keep making more horsepower.”

Keselowski qualified 20th.

Regan Smith, substituting for Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the No. 88 Chevrolet, qualified 26th. Kurt Busch, new to the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing car, was 21st, and AJ Allmendinger, returning to the sport after a drug-related suspension, was 38th in the Phoenix Racing car.

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 30 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.
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