Carl Edwards was the first car out in all three of NASCAR’s knockout qualifying sessions Friday and that might have helped. Edwards put down a lap of 27.74 second, 195.21 miles per hour early in the final five minute session around the 1.5 mile Texas Motor Speedway and secured the pole for Saturday night’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Duck Commander 500.
“This is a fun place to race,” Edwards a three time Texas winner said. “The tire, I don’t know what the other guys feel, the tire and downforce package for me lets me feel like I can go into the corner and move around and feel the tire underneath me. Even in qualifying, there were times when I got a little sideways and it slid a little bit and I could recover and that’s really fun as a race car driver.”
It was the 17th career pole for Edwards and his second at Texas, the last coming in the fall of 2013. Joey Logano last week’s pole winner continued his hot qualifying streak nearly stealing the pole from Edwards but coming up just short. Logano will start second on the front row for his second consecutive race and his third front row start of 2016.
“It’s funny because where we were really good, we were really good in (Turns) 1 and 2,” Logano said. “That’s where we beating the No. 19 (Edwards). And then I went in there the last time and it didn’t turn like it was, and I was like, ‘Oh, no!’ It was our good area and we actually fixed (Turns) 3 and 4 to where we were pretty good down there.”
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