McMurray upstages Chase drivers with Martinsville pole

[October 25, 2014]  The Sports Xchange
 
 By Reid Spencer
 
 NASCAR Wire Service
 
 MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- When the green flag waves to start the Goody's Headache Relief Shot 500 on Sunday at Martinsville Speedway (1:30 p.m. ET on ESPN), it won't be a Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup driver who leads the field to the start/finish line.

Touring the .526-mile short track in 99.905 mph in his No. 1 Ganassi Racing Chevrolet, Jamie McMurray upstaged the championship contenders on Friday in winning the pole for the first race in the Eliminator Round of the Chase.

In claiming his second Coors Light pole award of the season, his second at Martinsville and the 11th of his career, McMurray beat title contenders Joey Logano (99.605 mph) and Matt Kenseth (99.318 mph) for the top spot.

Tony Stewart (99.297 mph) qualified fourth, followed by Chase driver Denny Hamlin (99.266 mph). Six of the eight eligible remaining Chase drivers qualified in the top 12. Brad Keselowski will start sixth, Ryan Newman ninth and Carl Edwards 11th.

In McMurray's case, practice made perfect. His pole followed a productive recent test session at the historic short track.
 

"We tested here a couple of weeks ago, and I thought we had one of the best tests that I've been a part of, really since I started racing," McMurray said. "Really well organized ... We made the car better throughout the test and hit on a couple things that really had a lot of speed in it.

"So I was pretty excited about getting here this weekend. Our cars have been so quick the past two or three months -- really all year, but more so in the past few months. This is a great track for me, and we had a really good test.

"When things are going well, you get excited to come back to the track. It was really great that we were able to take that test and use that toward earning the pole today."

Jeff Gordon, one of the pre-race favorites, narrowly missed advancing to the second round of knockout qualifying and will start 13th. The real casualty of Friday's time trials, however, was Kevin Harvick, who scraped the wall in the 30-minute first round and will start 33rd.

"We just missed it today," said Harvick, whose career-average finish of 15.8 at Martinsville is worst among the eight remaining Chase drivers. "We were way too loose. We struggled in practice and just missed it in qualifying.

"We'll just have to get it better (in Saturday's practice) and be ready to go on Sunday."

Gordon, who missed advancing to the second round by .003 of a second, shrugged off his position on the grid.

"I don't mind starting 13th," he said. "It's not a bad place to start. You just want that really good pit stall, and so we'll definitely suffer with a pit stall a little bit.

"But we can definitely still win it from there. Our car is really good."

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