Five days after owner/driver Tony Stewart won the Sprint All-Star Race at Lowe's Motor Speedway, his teammate, Ryan Newman, ripped off a pole-winning run for Sunday's Coca-Cola 600 at the 1.5-mile track.
Newman turned a lap in 28.651 seconds Thursday to earn the top starting spot for the 600-miler, NASCAR's longest race. Kyle Busch (188.258 mph) made a concerted attempt to unseat Newman, who gave Stewart-Haas its first Sprint Cup pole, but fell just short after a slight mistake getting into Turn 3. Newman now has 44 career poles and eight at Lowe's (the most among active drivers) but hasn't started from the top spot in a Cup race since April 12, 2008, at Phoenix. A prolific pole winner earlier in his career, Newman won his first pole in his third Cup start and has claimed the top starting spot for the 600 in every odd-numbered year since. "After winning your first pole in your third start, and then going more than a year without winning one, you start to feel pole-deprived," Newman quipped. "I really wasn't totally satisfied with the lap -- everybody says that -- but obviously, you don't have to be when you have a fast race car."
Coincidentally, the top three qualifiers for Sunday's race are the same three who went three-wide through the fourth corner on Lap 93 of the Sprint All-Star Race, with Jeff Gordon wrecking and Busch and Newman each sustaining damage. "Yeah, as of right now, I'm going to call a meeting in the NASCAR hauler for all three teams to sit down and talk about the first lap," Newman said, laughing. "But it's kind of ironic how things work out."
Fast Facts The Race: Coca-Cola 600
The Date: Sunday, May 24
The Track: Lowe’s Motor Speedway
The Time: 5:45 p.m. ET The Distance: 400 laps/600 miles
TV: FOX. 2:00 p.m. PST
