|
 The question is whether the driver known as "The Closer" can
finally close the deal from the front row.
Harvick averaged 162.933 mph on the 1-mile track to edge Kyle Busch
(162.404 mph) for the top spot on the grid.
Denny Hamlin (162.250 mph) qualified third, followed by series
leader Brad Keselowski (162.140 mph), Jamie McMurray (161.936 mph)
and Jeff Gordon (161.573 mph).
Entering the first elimination race in the 2014 Chase for the NASCAR
Sprint Cup, Harvick is in little danger of missing the cut, having
finished fifth and third in the first two Chase events.
But the Coors Light pole award at the Monster Mile is Harvick's
seventh of the season, and only once this year, at Darlington in
April, has he won a race from the top starting spot.
The five-month absence from Victory Lane, however, isn't weighing on
Harvick.
"Not at all," said Harvick, who won his first pole at Dover and the
13th of his career. "I've been around this deal way too long to
complain about top-five finishes. There are a lot of circumstances
that go into winning a race at a lot of these places, and you just
have to keep knocking on that door.
"And then you'll win some that you shouldn't win, and a lot of times
you don't win the ones that you think you should have won, and you
win the ones that you don't think you should have won. So you just
keep finishing in the top five or top three, and everything else
will fall into place."
Busch is solidly inside the Chase bubble, but Hamlin is 13th after
last week's star-crossed 37th-place run at New Hampshire Motor
Speedway and in danger of elimination coming to a track where he
expects to excel.
"I expected to come here and contend for a pole and, really, contend
for a win this weekend," Hamlin said. "No matter what happened last
weekend, it didn't affect my mindset as far as what my expectations
were when I got to this racetrack.
[to top of second column] |
"There's a little bit more pressure to perform this weekend, so we
hope things fall our way."
A little more pressure? How about a lot?
"This will be the hardest race that I'll definitely ever drive --
400 miles," Hamlin acknowledged. "I'm just going to be as aggressive
as I can, but not put myself in a bad position. This is the most
important race of my career because it's the most significant of my
career at this point.
"We've got to get the job done, and I'm going to do my part to make
sure we're successful."
Other Chase drivers on the outside of the bubble qualified as
follows: Greg Biffle, 27th; Kurt Busch, 22nd; and Aric Almirola,
21st.
Besides Harvick, Busch, Hamlin, Keselowski and Gordon, the remaining
top-12 Chase drivers will start from the following positions: Jimmie
Johnson, eighth; Kasey Kahne, 12th; Matt Kenseth, 14th; Joey Logano,
16th; Carl Edwards, 18th; Ryan Newman, 20th; and AJ Allmendinger,
28th.
After Sunday's race, 12 Chase drivers will advance for the first
time to the contender round of NASCAR's revamped 10-race playoffs.
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