Martin Truex sets the pace for the 2012 Samsung Mobile 500 at Texas Motor Speedway
For the second time in his racing career Martin Truex Jr will lead the field to the green flag at Texas Motor Speedway. He will be watching his rear view mirror closely however, as the defending race champion Matt Kenseth will be close on his tail starting from his best start ever in Texas, second. Truex in his No. 56 Toyota posted a lap at 190.369 mph (28.366 seconds) to edge defending race winner Matt Kenseth (190.148 mph) for the top starting spot.
Truex, who is tied for third in the Cup standings with Kenseth, Kevin Harvick and Tony Stewart, is looking to get his first win since Dover in 2007.
Thats our main goal. This teams good enough. We can get to Victory Lane. Were going to do it soon. I feel good about this team. Im just having so much fun coming to the race track and driving these cars.
Were going to make them proud here pretty quick.
Tony Stewart will be one to watch as he tries to move forward from his 29th place starting position.
Tony Stewart, who has won four of the past six races on 1.5-mile tracks, including the past three (hes a two-time winner at Texas, most recently this past November) will be one to watch tonight as he makes his way forward from his 29th place starting position. Stewart brushed the wall in practice before qualifying and opted to go with his back up car. Suprisingly, the back up car seemed to respond to changes better than the primary car was.
With the pole secure, Truex will try to win his first race since June 2007, when he claimed his only Cup victory at Dover.
Thats our main goal, said Truex, who is tied for third in the Cup standings with Kenseth, Kevin Harvick and Tony Stewart. This teams good enough. We can get to Victory Lane. Were going to do it soon. I feel good about this team. Im just having so much fun coming to the race track and driving these cars.
Were going to make them proud here pretty quick.
Stewart qualified 29th in a backup car after scraping the outside wall during the second lap of Fridays 90-minute practice session. The accident may have been a blessing in disguise for the Stewart, who found the backup No. 14 Chevrolet more responsive to adjustments than his primary car.
I just got loose and didnt have enough race track to get it gathered up, Stewart said of the brush with the wall. We havent got a lot of laps on this one [the backup car], but I think we feel better with this one so far.
Its doing everything that we were trying to get the other one to do The top-tier teams, their backup cars are just as good as their primary cars, so definitely no concerns.
Dale Jr feels like hs is on the cusp of returning to his winning ways.
Dale Earnhardt Jr is looking good with his ound confidence that his fans remember. Sitting second in points over all and making it look easy, Jr says he is ready to win, and hopes it will be in Texas where he got his first ever Sprint Cup win.
Were getting closer. I feel like were getting closer, Earnhardt said. I dont really know what the measuring stick is, but hopefully its real close. Im ready to win. Im ready to go to Victory Lane. Ive been working with these guys, and theyre working so hard. Theyre giving me really, really good cars. They deserve to win races. I think the team deserves it. Ready to make that happen. Were just going to keep trying. Were getting closer, though. Thats the bright spot.
But dont count out the Roushketeers either. Matt Kenseth comes to Texas as the defending race champion, and Gerg Biffle is leading the overall points battle. Carl Edwards sits just outside the top 10 in eleventh position, and is still chomping at the bit after losing the championship to Tony Stewart after tying in points.
The three current Roushketeers were not only among the most consistent drivers last year, they were the strongest. All three swept the top five and all of them finished the AAA Texas 500 within three spots of their spring effort. Just as important, the group carried that momentum over from previous seasons, which gives them a balance of recent momentum and career strength.
Kenseth may very well be the strongest of the three at Texas. His victory in this race last year was the second on this track during his career, but the first since 2002. He wasnt simply logging laps in the intervening years, however; the driver of the No. 17 earned four runner-up finishes from 2006 through 2010, as well as another two third-place results. In his last 13 attempts, he has amassed nine top-fives and finished worse than 12th only once. Moreover, hes earned these results despite a variety of circumstances that include green-white-checkered finishes, fuel mileage races and rain-delayed events.
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