Both of Furniture Row Racing’s teams made it to the third and final round of qualifying Friday for Sunday’s Kobalt 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Martin Truex Jr. put the No. 78 Bass Pro Shops/TRACKER Boats Toyota Camry on the outside of the front row with a lap of 27.913 seconds at 193.458 mph. His teammate, Erik Jones, ran a quick lap of 28.071 at 192.369, good enough for eighth place and a starting spot on the outside of the fourth row for the No. 77 5-hour ENERGY Toyota Camry. It was Truex Jr.’s best NASCAR Cup Series qualifying finish at the 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Truex Jr., driving the No. 78 Bass Pro Shops/TRACKER Boats Toyota, was quickest in practice earlier in the day (27.907 at 193.500). He advanced to the final round after placing seventh in the first round with a lap time and speed of 28.000 at 192.857 and fifth in the second round (27.921 at 193.403).
“I didn’t feel like we left much out there, just missed the pole by a bit,” Truex Jr. said. “Overall I am proud of our guys for bringing a fast race car to Las Vegas. Right from the get go this Bass Pro Shops/TRACKER Boats Toyota felt very good to me. We just want to continue what we started today — being fastest in practice and then No. 2 in qualifying. Looking forward to see how our car performs in the race trim practices tomorrow. I am also real proud of our Furniture Row Racing teammates — the No. 77 5-hour ENERGY team. What they’ve accomplished so far with a rookie Cup crew chief (Chris Gayle) and a rookie Cup driver (Erik Jones) has been impressive. We’re all feeling good right now about having both of our team cars qualifying in the top-10.”
Jones, driver of the No. 77 5-hour ENERGY Toyota, was 12th fastest in practice with a best lap of 28.145 at 191.864. He advanced to the final round after placing third in the first round (27.934 at 193.313) and 10th in the second round (28.032 at 192.637).
“We got a little bit better from the second round, but it wasn’t quite enough to go up there and hit hard laps,” said Jones. “The 5-hour ENERGY Toyota Camry was just a little bit too tight in turns one and two. I feel like it would be interesting to go back and watch it to see what really happened. We’re a lot better than last week where we won’t have to be fighting from behind at the start. Hopefully, we’ll be good in race trim tomorrow and have a strong day.”
Brad Keselowski won the pole. Truex Jr. was second and the rest of the top 10 were: Ryan Blaney, Matt Kenseth, Kyle Larson, Joe Logano, Kasey Kahne, Erik Jones, and Kyle Busch.
Sunday’s Kobalt 400 race will be televised live on the Fox network 1:30 p.m. MT (3:30 ET).