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The Joe Gibbs Racing Qualifying Report Presented by Interstate BatteriesNASCAR Sprint Cup Series – Coca-Cola 600Date: May 22, 2008 JGR Lineup: Kyle Busch (1st, 29.121 seconds at 185.433 mph) Kyle Busch, driver of the No. 18 M&M’s Toyota, led the three-car Joe Gibbs Racing contingent in time trials at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway by qualifying on the pole for Sunday night’s Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race. Busch turned a lap of 29.121 seconds at 185.433 mph on the 1.5-mile oval to notch his third career Sprint Cup pole and his second of the season. He was one of only three drivers to crack 185 mph. This is the 44th Sprint Cup pole for Joe Gibbs Racing and the fourth pole at Charlotte for the No. 18 team, as former Joe Gibbs Racing driver Bobby Labonte earned the top spot in qualifying for the 1999 Coca-Cola 600 and the 1996 and 1999 UAW-GM Quality 500s. “First off, the guys on the team did an awesome job for me to work on it,” said Busch, who scored a Sprint Cup pole earlier this year at his hometown track in Las Vegas. “I talked to Steve (Addington, crew chief) after practice and we kind of made some strategy moves to see what we could learn with the car. It was only two laps, so we knew that we had to learn something and try something. Whatever it was, it worked. Not sure exactly what he did – they just put it up on scales and went back through it. Hopefully, they found something that was just a little bit off or changed something that we actually did learn something. I got to put it to the guys on this M&M’s Toyota team with JGR that just did it for us.” Busch’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammates – Denny Hamlin in the No. 11 FedEx Freight Toyota and Tony Stewart in the No. 20 Home Depot Toyota – qualified 16th and 31st, respectively. Hamlin turned a lap of 29.435 seconds at 183.455 mph while Stewart stopped the clocks in 29.652 seconds at 182.113 mph. “That lap was all right, I guess,” said Hamlin, who has three top-10 finishes in five career Sprint Cup races at Charlotte. “Obviously, you’d like to be better than that, but it’s a long race and we’ll have plenty of time to work on the car on Saturday.” “We didn’t want an early draw because that is not normally a good thing here,” said Stewart, who was the first driver to make a qualifying attempt. “But we’ve got 600 miles to get it all back.” Kasey Kahne, winner of last Saturday night’s NASCAR All-Star Race at Charlotte, will start alongside Busch on the outside of row one, as he timed in at 29.142 seconds at 185.300 mph. Brian Vickers (29.150 seconds at 185.249 mph) was third, while Greg Biffle (29.194 seconds at 184.970 mph) and David Ragan (29.273 seconds at 184.470 mph) rounded out the top-five. Forty-eight drivers attempted to qualify for the Coca-Cola 600. Those not making the cut in the 43-car field were Jeff Green, Stanton Barrett, Jon Wood, Joe Nemechek and Tony Raines. As far as manufacturers went, Toyota took the top spot via the pole run made by Busch. Dodge was next best at the hands of Kahne. Ford was the third-fastest make thanks to Biffle. And carrying the flag for Chevrolet was sixth-quick Dale Earnhardt Jr. (29.278 seconds at 184.439 mph). The Coca-Cola 600 gets underway at 5:30 p.m. EDT on Sunday with live, high-definition coverage provided by FOX beginning with its pre-race show at 5 p.m. The race will also be broadcast on SIRIUS Satellite Radio Channel 128.
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