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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Kenseth Survives To Capture Pole
Matt Kenseth will start from the inside of Row 1 on Sunday...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted November 12, 2011   Avondale, AZ
Matt Kenseth prevailed against slick, challenging and changing conditions to capture the pole for tomorrow’s Kobalt Tools 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Phoenix International Raceway.

With sunshine during qualifying, the new pavement was greasy and treacherous, with some drivers fighting the track badly. With less grip, drivers fought loose conditions, with lap times down about one full second from Friday’s late-afternoon Happy Hour practice.

Kenseth’s lap was 137.101 miles per hour, good enough to give him his third pole of the season and seventh of his career. It should be a huge advantage for the driver of the No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford.

“We watched everyone else and obviously there were a lot of people low on grip and it looked like the track and cars were a lot looser than yesterday,” said Kenseth. “Everyone had a different strategy. Jimmy (Fennig, crew chief) had a strategy to go fast in the first practice to go out late. Even though we knew the temperature would be hotter he thought the track could be faster with more cars having run on it.”

But it was all a big guessing game for the teams.

“A lot of people chose the opposite strategy and worked on race setup in the first practice and did their qualifying stuff in the second practice to go out early,” said Kenseth. “He (Fennig) had a plan and made the right adjustments. He thought it would be looser today. I didn’t get all there was to get out of the car. It was just that good. They made all the right choices there.”

AJ Allmendinger qualified second, followed by teammate Marcos Ambrose, with Mark Martin fourth and Martin Truex Jr. fifth.

“Every car seemed to get looser and looser,” said Allmendinger. “At that point you have what you have. We tightened it up from yesterday. Marcos put up a good lap and fed back what the track was like so I went in there with an expectation and my first lap was worse than even I expected. It was definitely a lot different than yesterday.”

The second five was Jamie McMurray, David Reutimann, Tony Stewart, Carl Edwards and Kasey Kahne. That means Stewart starts on the outside of Row 4 and Edwards on the inside of Row 5.

Edwards comes in with a lead of three points over Stewart heading into the penultimate race of the season.

“I think it is going to cool off tomorrow and be a lock-down, high-speed race track. Now it is up to the crew chiefs,” said Edwards.

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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