Martin Truex Jr. qualified 21st and his Furniture Row Racing teammate Erik Jones qualified 23rd for Sunday’s Alabama 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.
Truex drove the No. 78 Bass Pro Shops/TRACKER Boats Toyota to a lap of 50.788 seconds at 188.548 mph around the 2.66-mile high banked oval. He will line up on the inside of Row 11, next to Kevin Harvick, for the 188-lap race.
“Obviously this is one race where qualifying doesn’t mean a whole lot,” said Truex. “We’re going to go out tomorrow and race hard and attempt to pick up a few more (playoff) bonus points. Talladega hasn’t been good to us in the past, so hopefully that luck cycle will turn to our favor. It will be an interesting and exciting race as it always is here.”
Jones drove the No. 77 5-hour ENERGY Extra Strength Toyota to a lap of 50.863 at 188.270 and will line up on the inside of Row 12 next to AJ Allmendinger.
“You always want to start decent wherever you are but we don’t focus too hard on qualifying for Talladega,” said Jones. “I thought the speed of the 5-hour Toyota was good but it wasn’t quite enough to get into the pole round. We’ll start mid pack, which is fine, work our way to the front and hopefully stay out of trouble.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the pole. The balance of the top 12 qualifiers were: Chase Elliott, Joey Logano, Kurt Busch, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Brad Keselowski, Clint Bowyer, Jimmie Johnson, Ryan Blaney, Trevor Bayne, Kasey Kahne and Kyle Larson.
The Alabama 500 will air live Sunday beginning at noon MT (2 p.m. ET) on NBC, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90 and MRN.