Martin Truex Jr. qualified second and Furniture Row Racing teammate Erik Jones qualified 14th for Saturday night’s Quaker State 400 after rain cancelled the pole round at Kentucky Speedway.
It was the fifth runner-up qualifying effort in 2017 for Truex Jr., who will line up the No. 78 Furniture Row/Denver Mattress Toyota Camry on the outside of Row 1. His lap of 28.392 seconds at 190.194 mph was 0.013-of-a-second slower than pole winner Kyle Busch’s lap of 28.379 at 190.282.
“We definitely wanted another crack at it,” said Truex Jr. “I definitely left some out there in round two, but really proud of everybody on this Furniture Row Toyota. We had a good day at the race track here today. I think we’ve qualified second like five times now which stinks a little bit, but we’ll get our pole soon and we’ll go get them tomorrow night.”
Jones will start from the outside of Row 7 in the No. 77 SiriusXM Toyota Camry for the 267-lap, 400-mile race on the high-banked 1.5-mile oval. His second-round lap was 28.609 at 188.752.
“I thought we had a little bit more in the SiriusXM Toyota but we fell just a little short,” said Jones. “But I know Chris (Gayle, crew chief) and the engineers will put something together tomorrow that will make up for it. With the rain postponing the NASCAR Xfinity race until Saturday, I’ll run 700 miles by the end of the day but I’m more than ready.”
After Busch and Truex, Jr., the balance of the top-12 qualifiers in order were: Matt Kenseth, Jamie McMurray, Denny Hamlin, Ryan Blaney, Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson, Daniel Suarez, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano and Chase Elliott.
Saturday’s Quaker State 400 will air live beginning at 5:30 p.m. MT (7:30 p.m. ET) on NBCSN, SiriusXM 90 and PRN.
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