American NASCAR Driver Kevin Harvick broke his own track record and won the pole to start the second round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship Sunday.
Harvick set the mark at 197.773 mph in his second round of qualifying; then he turned a lap of 197.621 in the final round to earn the pole. Hi previous record was 194.658.
According to Harvick "For whatever reason this fits everything I have going on with my driving style. In the end it comes down to having a fast car. We have a fast car."
But aside from breaking his own record, this is also Harvick's eighth pole this year.
He said "With a little bit of good luck we can beat every car on the race track any given week at any style of race track, and that's really positive feeling to have as a driver. If the chips fall right we have the cars and the speed to do what we need to do."
Following Harvick in the race is Brian Vickers who qualified second with a lap of 196.307 then next is Aric Almirola as third.
Chase contenders Ryan Newman and Denny Hamlin were tied to the thousandth of a second for the final transfer spot in the first round of qualifying, each turning a lap of 193.736 mph.
Joey Logano began a run of five Chase contenders by qualifying fourth. Jeff Gordon was next, followed by Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Tony Stewart had qualified for the ninth place which is his best effort since returning to the track following the Sprint Car accident that killed Kevin Ward Jr. at a track in upstate New York.
According to Hamlin "Our cars just don't have any speed. Balance is fine, just three-tenths, fourth-tenths off consistently, all of our cars. Just disappointing we can't have any more speed out of our cars. We're doing the best we can to move up."
But what was surprising was Defending series champion Jimmie Johnson position in the race which is at 32nd place. This is the lowest he has started a Chase race since 2005 at Homestead.
