Stewart edges Biffle for pole position at Atlanta

Tony Stewart

Last week, Tony Stewart made all the highlight reels with a two-handed helmet toss aimed right at the front grill of Matt Kenseth’s Ford Fusion.

On Friday, Stewart was all smiles as he captured his first Coors Light Pole Award of the season in qualifying for Sunday’s Advocare 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Stewart used some timely advice from teammate Ryan Newman to go out and post a fast lap of 186.121mph and knock series points leader Greg Biffle from the top spot. Two more drivers were left to qualify but neither could find the speed to unseat Stewart.

Biffle held on to claim the outside pole. Kyle Busch was third, followed by Matt Kenseth and Jeff Gordon.
It was the first pole of the season for Stewart and 14th of his career, and his first career pole at Atlanta. He previously started from the pole here in October of 2002 after qualifying was rained out and the starting grid was set by points.

Stewart said he owed his pole-winning run to Newman – a seven-time Atlanta pole-winner – who had qualified earlier and told his boss that the high line was the fastest line around the tricky 1.5-mile quad-oval
“That pole is 100 percent due to Ryan Newman," said Stewart. “He walked back down there to help us before we went out and said there’s a ton of grip out there, you’ve just gotta do it. I was having a hard time convincing myself that’s what I was gonna do."

“I’m not sure if we’d have run the line I’d planned on running we’d have been that fast. It’s awesome having a teammate like. I don’t ever remember being here and seeing anybody run up at the top like he did."

The pole was a big boost to Stewart, who is fighting to hold onto the pivotal tenth position in points after a disappointing finish last weekend at Bristol – a finish that was the big story of the race for all the wrong reasons.

While dueling for the lead midway through last Saturday night’s race at Bristol, Stewart and Kenseth tangled which send both cars into the wall. Kenseth was able to drive away, only to get targeted by Stewart, who bounced his helmet off the front of Kenseth’s car, much to the delight of the crowd.

Addressing the media afterward, Stewart promised retaliation “every chance I’ve got", but during the day on Friday Stewart was seen in the garage happily chatting with Kenseth.

“We’re fine," said Stewart. “It's like we mentioned earlier in the week, we have too much to do the last 10 weeks to be worrying about each other. It's just like we always said there are 43 people out there and they are not always going to agree on the track at the same time. The big thing is getting it done and over with now.

“People like emotion. Every other sport gets a cool off period, every other sport you get time to calm down where our deal it's a little bit different – we don't have that. It's not like one play is a bad play and you go to another play the bad deal for us is we are done for the day. That is where it's different."

“That stuff is always fun to watch," said Kenseth of the helmet toss. “I hate being involved in it. I don’t like that part of it, but I always like watching it. I love watching other people’s conflicts. I mean, everybody does. It’s human nature. I think the fans loved the helmet toss. I thought that was cool, too, although I wish it wasn’t being tossed at me because it meant that he was upset with me. I don’t like that part.

“I wasn’t trying to put our cars in a bad situation. I thought we were gonna make it through there and I thought it was gonna be alright, so I’m not sure what all went down there, but, actually, Tony and I, in general, 99 percent of the time at least, show each other probably more respect and more room on the track than probably most people have. There have been a couple instances here and there, but I think, overall, we try to show each other a lot of respect and we usually get that back."

Mark Martin, Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson, Joey Logano and Marcos Ambrose finished out the top ten qualifiers. Michael McDowell, Josh Wise, Stephen Leicht and Mike Bliss failed to qualify.

Lineup

+ Set by Owner Points