McMurray tops Logano for Martinsville pole

Oct 24, 2014 - 10:47 PM Martinsville, VA (SportsNetwork.com) - Jamie McMurray claimed the pole for the Goody's Headache Relief Shot 500 -- the first race in the Eliminator Round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship -- by beating Joey Logano in Friday's qualifying at Martinsville Speedway.

McMurray, who is not in the Chase field, made a lap around this 0.526-mile, paperclip-shaped track at 99.905 mph during the second and final round of knockout qualifying. His lap was 0.057 seconds quicker than Logano's lap, which was clocked at 99.605 mph.

It was McMurray's second pole of the season and the 11th of his Sprint Cup Series career. His first pole this year came in June at Sonoma. McMurray also earned the top starting position at Martinsville in the spring of 2011. His best finish in a Cup race here is second, which occurred in the fall of 2004.

"Great start to our weekend for our McDonald's (sponsored) Chevrolet," McMurray said. "We tested here, and I thought we had a really good test. (Crew chief) Keith (Rodden) and (team engineer) Josh (Sell) just did a really good job adjusting on the car. It's amazing you can go quicker your second time out. For years, we came here to these places and ran slower. That was a good lap."

McMurray has not been into victory lane in Sprint Cup since October 2013 at Talladega (36 races ago).

Logano is one of the eight drivers who remains in the Chase. It's the first time he will start on the front row at Martinsville.

"I was not first, but we were close to it," Logano said. "Jamie laid down a hell of a lap there."

Matt Kenseth, a title contender, qualified third, while Tony Stewart, a non- Chaser, took the fourth spot.

"It surprised me with our speed there, and I thought we were going to have a shot at the pole, but I didn't quite have the same feel I wanted there on that last lap," Kenseth said. "Overall, that's great. You can't complain about starting third, especially here."

Finishing fifth through 12th in the last qualifying round were: Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski, who won last Sunday's race at Talladega to advance into the next playoff round, Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Busch, Ryan Newman, Kurt Busch, Carl Edwards and Clint Bowyer.

Hamlin, Newman and Edwards have advanced into the Eliminator Round as well.

Jeff Gordon, who is in the Chase and the defending winner of this race, missed the cut for the second round by only 0.003 seconds. Gordon will start 13th.

"The track definitely freed-up for us, and I was loose-in and real loose off," Gordon said. "I really fought the drive off. I thought that first lap might be enough to squeak our way in there and then we could make some adjustments. We tried some adjustments there that next time out. It just didn't have the drive-off that I needed, so we did fight that.

"I don't mind starting 13th. It's not a bad place to start. You just want that really good pit stall, and so we'll definitely suffer with a the pit stall a little bit, but we can definitely still win it from there."

Title contender Kevin Harvick, who leads the series with eight pole wins this season, qualified 33rd after making slight contact with the wall during his attempts in the opening round. Harvick had a 39th-place finish in qualifying last week at Talladega.

"We just missed it today," Harvick said. "We were way too loose. We struggled in practice and just missed it in qualifying."

All 43 drivers who attempted qualifying made the starting field for Sunday's 500-lap race at Martinsville.