Keselowski and Logano on the Front Row at Michigan

Paul Sancya/ AP

BROOKLYN, MI – RIS – Brad Keselowski led a Ford contingent to dominate qualifying at Mihigan International Speedway for Sunday’s Pure Michigan 400.  Keselowski, a Michigan native came home to put his Team Penske Ford Fusion on the point.  To add to that, his teammate, Joey Logano will start alongside Keselowski on the front row.

“I’m not really known as a great qualifier, so maybe over time I’ve probably put a little less stock in qualifying,” Keselowski said. “But I can tell you that when I saw that we were going to win the pole those last few seconds of qualifying, it put chills down my body. It’s a great feeling. It’s a special track for me to have any kind of success at.”

Keselowski’s pole was his 14th on the Cup Series and first at Michigan. It was his second this year

Keselowski took the pole with a lap of 35.451 seconds (203.097 mph) in his No. 2 Ford. Logano was close behind at 35.457.

“Missed it by seven thousandths,” Logano said. “So close. But we’ve got to be proud of the effort that we put in as a team.”

Keselowski, who is from Rochester Hills, won at Michigan in the Nationwide Series but has never done so at the Cup level.

“Any success you have at your home track is right there with having success in the biggest races of the year,” Keselowski said.

Also Friday, Harvick talked a bit more about his comments from earlier in the week about Dale Earnhardt Jr. Harvick suggested on SiriusXM that NASCAR’s growth has fallen short of its potential because Earnhardt — the most popular driver — hasn’t been successful enough. Earnhardt described some of the comments as “hurtful” on Thursday.

“It wasn’t anything personal. He had his opinion the week before on driver salaries and driver ages and those things, and I don’t know that anybody in the garage agreed with those either,” Harvick said. “There’s definitely opinions on a lot of things. There’s nothing personal, and I didn’t take anything that he said the week before personally either.”

Among the Ford drivers, Harvick qualified third, Clint Bowyer was 11th and Ryan Blaney 12th.  The first Chevrolet was Chase Elliott in 5th and Jamie McMurray was 7th. Kyle Larson was ninth.  The highest Toyota was Matt Kenseth in fourth, while Kyle Busch was sixth, Erik Jones was 8th.

Driver Date Time Speed
Track Race Record: Dale Jarrett 06/13/99 02:17:56 173.997
Pos Car Driver Team Time Speed
Row 1: 1 2 Brad Keselowski Miller Lite Ford 35.451 203.097
2 22 Joey Logano Shell Pennzoil Ford 35.457 203.063

Row 2: 3 4 Kevin Harvick Busch Light Ford 35.505 202.788
4 20 Matt Kenseth DEWALT Flexvolt Toyota 35.542 202.577

Row 3: 5 24 Chase Elliott NAPA Chevrolet 35.568 202.429
6 18 Kyle Busch Interstate Batteries Toyota 35.644 201.998

Row 4: 7 1 Jamie McMurray Cessna Chevrolet 35.664 201.884
8 77 Erik Jones # 5-hour ENERGY Extra Strength Toyota 35.678 201.805

Row 5: 9 42 Kyle Larson Target Chevrolet 35.685 201.765
10 11 Denny Hamlin FedEx Office Toyota 35.697 201.698

Row 6: 11 14 Clint Bowyer Nature's Bakery/Feeding America Ford 35.714 201.602
12 21 Ryan Blaney Motorcraft/SKF Ford 35.779 201.235

Row 7: 13 78 Martin Truex Jr. Furniture Row/Denver Mattress Toyota 35.774 201.263
14 17 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Go Bowling Ford 35.849 200.842

Row 8: 15 41 Kurt Busch Monster Energy/Haas Automation Ford 35.891 200.607
16 19 Daniel Suarez # ARRIS Surfboard/McAfee Toyota 35.916 200.468

Row 9: 17 3 Austin Dillon Dow Automotive Magna Chevrolet 35.945 200.306
18 10 Danica Patrick Code 3 Associates Ford 35.954 200.256

Row 10: 19 88 Dale Earnhardt Jr. Axalta Chevrolet 35.968 200.178
20 37 Chris Buescher Bush's Grillin' Beans Chevrolet 36.081 199.551

Row 11: 21 6 Trevor Bayne Roush Performance Ford 36.115 199.363
22 48 Jimmie Johnson Lowe's/Jimmie Johnson Foundation Chevrolet 36.122 199.325

Row 12: 23 5 Kasey Kahne Liftmaster Chevrolet 36.126 199.302
24 43 Aric Almirola Smithfield Ford 36.243 198.659

Row 13: 25 31 Ryan Newman Velveeta Shells & Cheese Chevrolet 36.408 197.759
26 95 Michael McDowell WRL General Contractors Chevrolet 36.438 197.596

Row 14: 27 32 Matt DiBenedetto Can-Am/Kappa Ford 36.465 197.450
28 38 David Ragan Overton's Ford 36.550 196.990

Row 15: 29 47 AJ Allmendinger Kroger ClickList Chevrolet 36.617 196.630
30 27 Paul Menard Dutch Boy/Menards Chevrolet 36.761 195.860

Row 16: 31 72 Cole Whitt Bad Boy Mowers Chevrolet 36.892 195.164
32 34 Landon Cassill MDS Transport Ford 36.901 195.117

Row 17: 33 13 Ty Dillon # GEICO Chevrolet 36.965 194.779
34 23 Corey LaJoie # JAS Expedited Trucking Toyota 37.015 194.516

Row 18: 35 83 Brett Moffitt(i) Northwestern Technological Institute Toyota 37.070 194.227
36 33 Jeffrey Earnhardt Hulu Chevrolet 37.810 190.426

Row 19: 37 15 Derrike Cope StarCom Fiber Toyota 38.271 188.132
38 55 Reed Sorenson Low T Center Chevrolet 38.468 187.169

Row 20: 39 51 BJ McLeod(i) Corrigan Oil Chevrolet 38.710 185.998

Did Not Qualify: None.
Manufacturer Starting Lineup DNQs Manufacturer Starting Lineup DNQs
Chevrolet 17 0 Toyota 9 0
Ford 13 0
(i) Ineligible for driver points in this series

Ron Fleshman

RIS NASCAR Editor.  Has been with RIS since the middle 90's. Writes on each of the three main series of NASCAR.

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Volume 2017, Issue 8, Posted 3:27 AM, 08.12.2017