(By Reid Spencer NASCAR Wire Service)
Posted: Friday,April 30th, 2010
RICHMOND, Va.—It wasn’t Derby day at Richmond International Speedway, but Kyle Busch scored a daily double nonetheless.
With a lap at 127.077 mph (21.247 seconds), Busch won the Coors Light Pole Award for Saturday’s Heath Calhoun 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at the .75-mile short track—less than three hours after putting his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota on the pole for Friday night’s Bubba Burger 250 Nationwide Series race.
Busch edged fellow Camry driver David Reutimann (126.618 mph) for the top starting spot in the 10th race of the Cup season. Hendrick Motorsports teammates Jimmie Johnson (126.464 mph) and Jeff Gordon (126.375 mph), who on Friday downplayed the “feud” that ignited between the four-time champions at Texas and Talladega, will start side-by-side in the third and fourth positions.
RICHMOND, VA - APRIL 30: Kyle Busch, driver of the #18 M&M's Toyota, drives during practice for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series CROWN ROYAL Presents the Heath Calhoun 400 at Richmond International Raceway on April 30, 2010 in Richmond, Virginia. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)
Ryan Newman qualified fifth at 126.245 mph. Brad Keselowski, Kevin Harvick, Jamie McMurray, Brian Vickers and Clint Bowyer earned the sixth through 10th starting positions, respectively.
“Richmond’s one of my best racetracks, I guess for some reason, if not one of my favorites, and (Saturday) we’ll try to get (Dave) Rogers his first win as a Cup crew chief,” said Busch, who won his first pole of the season, the sixth of his career and his first at Richmond.
“I love Charlotte—Charlotte’s my most favorite racetrack—and then Bristol’s another one, Chicago’s another one and Vegas is another one. I’d say Richmond’s probably fifth. I really run well here and I like coming here. It’s definitely a neat racetrack, a challenging racetrack.
“It makes it hard on everything—the brakes, the drivers, the pit crews, the noise here. It really is a fun and exciting racetrack.”
Reutimann posted the 26th fastest time Friday’s first Cup practice session but improved to second in the final session.
“We unloaded with a little bit different setup than what we had run here in the past—just trying to get better—and sometimes when you unload like that, it doesn’t go your way,” Reutimann said. “The important thing is that we able to rebound and get it going in the right direction, which is not always easy.”
Michael McDowell, Max Papis and Dave Blaney failed to qualify for the 43-car field.
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