Carl Edwards Wins Second Straight Bristol Pole

Carl Edwards won his fifth pole of the season
Jeff Curry/NASCAR via Getty Images

Carl Edwards spoiled the day for teammate Denny Hamlin but carried the day for Joe Gibbs Racing, winning the pole for Saturday night's Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Edwards topped the third and final round of Friday's qualifying session with a lap of 14.602 seconds (131.407 mph) to knock teammate Matt Kenseth from the top spot. Kyle Busch then took over the second spot, putting JGR in position to sweep the top three spots before Ryan Blaney cracked the top three to break up the trifecta.

Hamlin, who topped his own track qualifying record in the opening round, hit the track in the final minutes and rocketed to the second spot, but couldn't top Edwards. Hamlin's time of 14.625 seconds (131.200mph) was enough to knock Blaney out of the top three to preserve the sweep for JGR, with Kyle Busch (14.655, 130.931mph) holding third. Blaney (14.688, 130.637mph) slipped to fourth, while Kenseth (14.690, 130.619mph) rounded out the top five.

Edwards' pole was his fifth of the season and 21st of his career, and gives him two straight at Bristol, after he taking the pole and the win in the race held here back in April.

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]"A little bit surprising – we didn't make a mock (qualifying) run," said Edwards. "That tells you how great of teammates I have. They're so fast and they helped us a lot, so we'll start where we started earlier this year. Hopefully we can put STANLEY in victory lane, but this is going to be a heck of a race. Those are fast laps. That's a lot of fun. Just proud of my guys – they worked really hard. We rolled the dice and it was fast.

"All these JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) Toyotas are great. We've been working well together, pushing each other and, like I said, I owe it to my teammates. This is – with no qualifying runs in practice, this is pretty cool."

Hamlin led both of the opening rounds of Friday's qualifying session, taking the top spot in the opening round with a lap of 14.573 seconds (131.668 mph), breaking his own track speed record of 131.407 set just last year. Kyle Busch took the second spot, followed by Joey Logano, Kenseth and Blaney.

In the second round, Hamlin rocketed back to the top of the leaderboard again, clocking in at 14.704 seconds (130.495). Kenseth, Martin Truex, Jr., Blaney and Edwards rounded out the top five in the round.

With the third and final round underway, Hamlin waited until the final two minutes to try and sweep all three rounds, but came up .023 seconds short.

Although he gets to keep his name in the track record books, Hamlin would rather have won his first pole of the season.

"It's a small consolation," said Hamlin of keeping the track record. "It would still be cool to get a pole; we haven't got a pole this year, and we want to get that done. I definitely was mindful of the track record, because we had it before so I wanted make sure we kept it.

"I can't believe we've qualified as good as we have this year and to not have gotten a pole has been unbelievable, but still a great effort by our whole team and hopefully we have a good race up here tomorrow night and we get in victory lane."

Chase Elliott, Truex, Jr., A.J. Allmendinger, Brad Keselowski and Logano made up the rest of the top ten qualifiers.

Qualifying Results

Pos. # Driver Make Sponsor Time Lap Behind
1 19 Carl Edwards Toyota Stanley 131.407 14.602 Leader
2 11 Denny Hamlin Toyota FedEx Express 131.200 14.625 –0.023
3 18 Kyle Busch Toyota M&M's 130.931 14.655 –0.053
4 21 Ryan Blaney Ford Virginia Tech / Motorcraft 130.637 14.688 –0.086
5 20 Matt Kenseth Toyota Dollar General 130.619 14.690 –0.088
6 24 Chase Elliott Chevy NAPA Auto Parts 129.850 14.777 –0.175
7 78 Martin Truex Jr Toyota Bass Pro 129.544 14.812 –0.210
8 47 AJ Allmendinger Chevy Bush's Grillin Beans 129.482 14.819 –0.217
9 2 Brad Keselowski Ford AutoTrader 129.334 14.836 –0.234
10 22 Joey Logano Ford Shell Pennzoil 129.169 14.855 –0.253
11 88 Jeff Gordon Chevy Axalta 129.038 14.870 –0.268
12 34 Chris Buescher Ford Love's Travel Stops 128.296 14.956 –0.354
13 3 Austin Dillon Chevy Dow – Great Stuff 129.021 14.872 –0.270
14 41 Kurt Busch Chevy Monster Energy 128.926 14.883 –0.281
15 31 Ryan Newman Chevy Caterpillar 128.666 14.913 –0.311
16 48 Jimmie Johnson Chevy Kobalt 128.623 14.918 –0.316
17 43 Aric Almirola Ford Waffle House 128.623 14.918 –0.316
18 83 Matt DiBenedetto Toyota Cosmo Motors 128.503 14.932 –0.330
19 5 Kasey Kahne Chevy AARP 128.477 14.935 –0.333
20 27 Paul Menard Chevy Knauf / Menards 128.477 14.935 –0.333
21 13 Casey Mears Chevy GEICO 128.262 14.960 –0.358
22 6 Trevor Bayne Ford Advocare 128.142 14.974 –0.372
23 42 Kyle Larson Chevy Huggies 127.997 14.991 –0.389
24 4 Kevin Harvick Chevy Busch Beer 127.436 15.057 –0.455
25 17 Ricky Stenhouse Jr Ford Fastenal Ford Fusion 128.279 14.958 –0.356
26 95 Michael McDowell Chevy Thrivent Financial 128.134 14.975 –0.373
27 14 Tony Stewart Chevy Haas Automation 127.835 15.010 –0.408
28 1 Jamie McMurray Chevy Cessna Chevrolet 127.809 15.013 –0.411
29 10 Danica Patrick Chevy Nature's Bakery 127.648 15.032 –0.430
30 44 Brian Scott Ford Medallion Financial 127.588 15.039 –0.437
31 15 Clint Bowyer Chevy 5-Hour Energy 126.997 15.109 –0.507
32 38 Landon Cassill Ford MDS Transport 126.989 15.110 –0.508
33 7 Regan Smith Chevy APC Chevrolet 126.553 15.162 –0.560
34 16 Greg Biffle Ford Ford EcoBoost 126.545 15.163 –0.561
35 98 Cole Whitt Chevy Carolina Skiff 125.486 15.291 –0.689
36 55 Reed Sorenson Chevy TBD 125.363 15.306 –0.704
37 23 David Ragan Toyota Dr. Pepper 125.158 15.331 –0.729
38 32 Jeffrey Earnhardt Ford Can-Am 124.307 15.436 –0.834
39 46 Michael Annett Chevy Pilot Flying J 123.626 15.521 –0.919
40 30 Josh Wise Chevy Curtis Key Plumbing 122.263 15.694 –1.09

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