Dale Earnhardt Jr set a blistering pole speed by almost 1/2 a mph faster than the next driver as he snagged the No. 1 starting spot for the Kobalt 500 on Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Junior Nation goes crazy wild, that’s for sure.
One qualifying story the world was watching was to see if Ryan Newman was going to break his tie with Buddy Baker of 7 poles here at Atlanta, but alas, it is not to be so this time by as Ryan oddly, qualified 7th. [Atlanta Stat Facts]
Of note, Mark Martin qualified 4th, Tony Stewart 15th, Jimmie Johnson 16th. Bobby Labonte snagged his best starting position of the year so far, with 21st. A.J. Allmendinger 25th, Bill Elliott 34th, Kevin Harvick 35th.
Aric Almirola, Casey Mears & Terry Cook did not make the field.
Here’s the field, as they would look on the grid on Sunday at Atlanta:
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| POS | CAR | DRIVER | POS | CAR | DRIVER | |
| 1 | 88 | Dale Earnhardt Jr. | 2 | 18 | Kyle Busch | |
| 3 | 42 | Juan Montoya | 4 | 5 | Mark Martin | |
| 5 | 24 | Jeff Gordon | 6 | 9 | Kasey Kahne | |
| 7 | 39 | Ryan Newman | 8 | 19 | Elliott Sadler | |
| 9 | 0 | David Reutimann | 10 | 99 | Carl Edwards | |
| 11 | 2 | Kurt Busch | 12 | 47 | Marcos Ambrose | |
| 13 | 16 | Greg Biffle | 14 | 17 | Matt Kenseth | |
| 15 | 14 | Tony Stewart | 16 | 48 | Jimmie Johnson | |
| 17 | 6 | David Ragan | 18 | 33 | Clint Bowyer | |
| 19 | 56 | Martin Truex Jr. | 20 | 11 | Denny Hamlin | |
| 21 | 71 | Bobby Labonte | 22 | 31 | Jeff Burton | |
| 23 | 98 | Paul Menard | 24 | 1 | Jamie McMurray | |
| 25 | 43 | A.J. Allmendinger | 26 | 83 | Brian Vickers | |
| 27 | 66 | Dave Blaney | 28 | 12 | Brad Keselowski | |
| 29 | 20 | Joey Logano | 30 | 36 | Mike Bliss | |
| 31 | 13 | Max Papis | 32 | 82 | Scott Speed | |
| 33 | 87 | Joe Nemechek | 34 | 21 | Bill Elliott | |
| 35 | 29 | Kevin Harvick | 36 | 77 | Sam Hornish Jr. | |
| 37 | 38 | David Gilliland | 38 | 78 | Regan Smith | |
| 39 | 7 | Robby Gordon | 40 | 34 | Travis Kvapil+ | |
| 41 | 37 | Kevin Conway+* | 42 | 26 | Boris Said+ | |
| 43 | 55 | Michael McDowell |
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