Newly crowned Daytona 500 champion Joey Logano won the Coors Light Pole Award for Sunday’s Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
The front of the field will look similar to last week’s Daytona 500 finish, with runner-up Kevin Harvick starting alongside the Team Penske driver.
For Logano, it is the ninth pole of his Sprint Cup Series career, but his first at the 1.54-mile track.
“I really want to win here,” said Logano. “I lived here for six years. I used to race on the quarter-mile (track) out here in my Legends car for years. It’s really cool to be starting first and hopefully we can finish there.”
However, the story of the day was not about who won the pole on Friday, but rather what drivers weren’t able to contend for it.
There were 13 cars that never made it out of technical inspection for the first round of qualifying, including former Sprint Cup champions Tony Stewart, Jeff
Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, and Matt Kenseth.
The qualifying session had many drivers upset and in disbelief.
“This is absolutely embarrassing…to not even get a chance to go out on the race track is ridiculous, the fans deserve an apology,” said four-time Sprint Cup champion Jeff Gordon after his team couldn’t get on track for round one of qualifying.
Gordon will start 35th on Sunday due to his current position in the championship standings.
Kenseth shared Gordon’s thoughts on the situation.
“They should figure out how to get everyone through tech before qualifying starts, first of all. If they can’t do that, they should probably postpone qualifying until they get everyone through tech with that many cars.”
According to NASCAR Sprint Cup director Richard Buck most of the problem areas related to mechanical grip, specifically rear camber.
Among the 47 cars that showed up, Reed Sorenson, Michael Annett, Mike Wallace, and Matt DiBenedetto failed to make the race for Sunday.
Below are the results from Friday’s qualifying session at Atlanta Motor Speedway:
1. Joey Logano
2. Kevin Harvick
3. Jamie McMurray
4. Denny Hamlin
5. Carl Edwards
6. Kyle Larson
7. Ryan Newman
8. Sam Hornish Jr.
9. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
10. Kasey Kahne
11. AJ Allmendinger
12. Brad Keselowski
13. Paul Menard
14. Martin Truex Jr.
15. Austin Dillon
16. Justin Allgaier
17. David Ragan
18. Danica Patrick
19. Greg Biffle
20. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
21. Casey Mears
22. Brett Moffitt
23. Aric Almirola
24. Michael McDowell
25. Clint Bowyer
26. David Gilliland
27. Mike Bliss
28. Joe Nemechek
29. Trevor Bayne
30. J.J. Yeley
31. Brendan Gaughan
32. Brian Scott
33. Josh Wise
34. Ron Hornaday Jr.
35. Jeff Gordon
36. Matt Kenseth
37. Jimmie Johnson
38. Regan Smith
39. Tony Stewart
40. Jeb Burton
41. Cole Whitt
42. Alex Bowman
43. Landon Cassill
Image: Kevin C. Cox/NASCAR via Getty Images
