Martin Truex Jr. will start sixth in the final Sprint Cup Series race of the season.
Truex’s qualifying effort Friday at Homestead-Miami Speedway is the 25th time this season that he will have a starting position in the top 10. He ended the season with a 9.1 qualifying average, three positions better than his previous season best of 12.1, set in 2012.
Driving the No. 78 Bass Pro Shops/Denver Mattress Toyota at the 1.5-mile oval, Truex was 12th fastest in the first round (30.698 seconds at 175.907 mph), fifth in the second (30.445 at 177.369) and sixth in the pole-shootout round of 12 (30.513 at 176.974).
“No question it’s been a good season of qualifying,” said Truex. “We don’t have any complaints, but on the other hand we sure wanted to win the pole today. We have high standards and that’s the way we have approached every qualifying session and every race this season. This is one of my best tracks and I am looking forward to our race trim practice tomorrow.”
The pole winner was Kevin Harvick. Rounding out the top 12 were: Brad Keselowski, Ryan Newman, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott, Truex, Matt Kenseth, Ryan Blaney, Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, Tony Stewart and AJ Allmendinger.
Sunday’s race will be televised on NBC 1 p.m. MT (3 p.m. ET).