Kyle Busch Qualifying Consistency Rewarded with Bank of America 500 Pole

Kyle Busch won the pole for Saturday's Bank of America 500

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(CONCORD, NC – OCT 9, 2014 – RIS) Kyle Busch drove his No. 18 Doublemint Toyota to the fastest pole lap ever on a mile and a half superspeedway tonight with a lap of 27.357 sec/197.390 mph. The record book, though, will show his brother with the fastest lap of the evening, set in the second session at 198.771 mph and 27.167 seconds, setting a new qualifying record for the track. The average of the pole winner's three laps was 197.352 mph.

"It seemed like the guy that was the most consistent was able to win the pole tonight. I think we had a .38 then a .33 and then a .36 so pretty good laps there," said Busch. "I felt pretty good about all of them and Dave (Rogers, crew chief) made some really good adjustments this time -- you have to adjust on these things for these qualifying runs. The track changes just a little bit, but the car and the tires change too. It feels good already and we tested here a few weeks ago and I was really happy with the test. We unloaded today and not so happy about it -- just Charlotte. It will be different again tomorrow, you can certainly chalk that up for sure.

"We're working on it and we are getting better. I've been saying that if we get one piece of the puzzle each week at a time and we're going to be hard to beat. We'll see if we've got it all. This is early in the weekend and looks good right now, but still 500 miles to race here Saturday night," he added.

"It certainly feels good that we're heading in the right direction at the right time of the year. It's all about peaking at the right time and hopefully we haven't peaked yet and we still have a ways to climb. I feel like we do anyways. We haven't won. There's opportunity there."

Second place qualifier Jeff Gordon commented: "I'm very pleased. Looking back on it certainly felt like we have a car that could have been on the pole tonight. I'm a little bit let down that I didn't get it for this team because I do feel like the car was fast enough to do it. Got through (turns) one and two extremely good just like I did through the second segment and in the second segment I over drove (turn) three and four and pushed the front. I was so nervous about doing that this time I just thought 'man if I can just get it to turn the middle and get off there really good and clean it will be a good lap, maybe good enough for the pole'. That just wasn't the case. I think maybe I didn't get through (turns) one and two quite as good as I did the run before that. When I got down to (turn) three I think I was just a little bit too conservative. I got through there really clean and the car turned really good and I didn't expect it to do that. Still a really good effort and really good position to start this race on Saturday."

"What is amazing to me is we qualified here at night in May and the pole was a 28.70 and tonight we are down there at a 27.16. That is unbelievable to me. You definitely feel like when you go through one and two I think I feel the speed and the grip more in one and two than I did in three and four. Of course I had a few little issues down in three and four, but in one and two I mean you are just barely even out of the gas. Some guys probably weren't out of it all the way. You are just back wide open so early in the corner. Back in 1994 and 1993 that was just unimaginable to be able to go through there so fast. I remember always coming to Charlotte and when the sun goes down and you go to qualify and they tape up the grill how you just had to hold your breath and really push the limits and go for it. It seemed like back then I was pushing just as hard, but we weren't going as fast. Now the cars don't go faster because they are on the edge and wrecking they go faster because they are stuck really well. You still have to push the limits of the car. To do that there is a lot of throttle and very little brake and carrying a lot of speed. Tonight for me it was one of the easier qualifying sessions I have had here in a while. We fought so many more things here in May and tonight our car was really close and one and two was really easy because it stuck so good even though I was having to push the limits of it really hard. It doesn't feel like it's that fast, but it definitely feels fast."

Denny Hamlin, driver of the No. 11 FedEx Ground Toyota Camry, will start third in Saturday's race: "It was a good qualifying run really for our team and obviously picked up every session, which is good," he said. "I felt like we were better in race trim than what we were in qualifying. Tomorrow we'll work on that and that will be our main focus. Try to put ourselves in a good position when we leave this race on Saturday night.

"We're getting better -- we're definitely not at that peak yet, but we're getting closer and closer to the field on speed," he added.

Starting Line Up: 55th Annual Bank of America 500

Pos, Driver, Car, Speed, Time
1) Kyle Busch, No. 18 Doublemint Toyota, 197.390 mph, 27.357 sec
2) Jeff Gordon, No. 24 Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet, 197.217, 27.381
3) Denny Hamlin, No. 11 FedEx Ground Toyota, 197.087, 27.399
4) Tony Stewart, No. 14 Bass Pro Shops/Mobil 1 Chevrolet, 196.542, 27.475
5) Ryan Newman, No. 31 Caterpillar Chevrolet, 196.442, 27.489
6) Paul Menard, No. 27 Schrock/Menards Chevrolet, 196.100, 27.537
7) Kevin Harvick, No. 4 Budweiser Chevrolet, 195.837, 27.574
8) Brian Vickers, No. 55 Aaron's Dream Machine Toyota, 195.744, 27.587
9) Dale Earnhardt Jr., No. 88 Diet Mountain Dew Chevrolet, 194.953, 27.699
10) Carl Edwards, No. 99 Fastenal Ford, 194.861, 27.712
11) Kurt Busch, No. 41 State Water Heaters Chevrolet, 194.328, 27.788
12) Greg Biffle, No. 16 3M Bondo Ford, 191.598, 28.184
13) Joey Logano, No. 22 Pennzoil Platinum Ford, 196.485, 27.483
14) Danica Patrick, No. 10 GoDaddy Breast Cancer Awareness Chevrolet, 196.464, 27.486
15) Aric Almirola, No. 43 Smithfield/Waffle House Ford, 196.442, 27.489
16) Justin Allgaier#, No. 51 BRANDT Professional Agriculture Chevrolet, 196.414, 27.493
17) Brad Keselowski, No. 2 Detroit Genuine Parts Ford, 196.278, 27.512
18) Jamie McMurray, No. 1 McDonald's Monopoly Chevrolet, 196.278, 27.512
19) Kasey Kahne, No. 5 Pepsi Chevrolet, 196.271, 27.513
20) Austin Dillon#, No. 3 Dow Chevrolet, 196.207, 27.522
21) Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Lowe's Chevrolet, 196.171, 27.527
22) Matt Kenseth, No. 20 Dollar General Toyota, 196.114, 27.535
23) Martin Truex Jr., No. 78 Furniture Row Chevrolet, 195.730, 27.589
24) Kyle Larson#, No. 42 Target Chevrolet, 195.673, 27.597
25) Clint Bowyer, No. 15 PinkLemonade5HrEnrgyBeneLBBC Toyota, 195.291, 27.651
26) AJ Allmendinger, No. 47 Scott Products Chevrolet, 195.277, 27.653
27) Marcos Ambrose, No. 9 Stanley Ford, 194.665, 27.740
28) Ricky Stenhouse Jr., No. 17 Zest Ford, 194.273, 27.796
29) Casey Mears, No. 13 GEICO Chevrolet, 194.112, 27.819
30) Reed Sorenson, No. 36 Zing Zang Chevrolet, 193.736, 27.873
31) Michael McDowell, No. 95 Pieters Pals/KLOVE Ford, 193.465, 27.912
32) Landon Cassill(i), No. 40 Chevrolet, 193.368, 27.926
33) Alex Bowman#, No. 23 Dr Pepper Toyota, 193.223, 27.947
34) David Ragan, No. 34 CSX - Play It Safe Ford, 193.175, 27.954
35) Michael Annett#, No. 7 Cypress HQ Chevrolet, 193.078, 27.968
36) Cole Whitt#, No. 26 Rinnai Toyota, 192.974, 27.983
37) David Gilliland, No. 38 MDS Transport Ford, , Owner Points
38) Josh Wise, No. 98 Provident Metals Chevrolet, , Owner Points
39) Brett Moffitt, No. 66 RoyalTeakCollection.com Toyota, , Owner Points
40) Timmy Hill, No. 33 Retroinfinity.com Chevrolet, , Owner Points
41) JJ Yeley(i), No. 83 Painter's Ice Cream Toyota, , Owner Points
42) Corey LaJoie(i), No. 77 Essex Homes Ford, , Owner Points
43) Blake Koch(i), No. 32 Leaf Filter Ford, , Owner Points

Did Not Qualify: No. 6 Trevor Bayne(i). (i) Ineligible for driver points in this series