Kenseth captures the STP 400 pole at Kansas; Breaks up Ford front row

On a very difficult day that was cold and windy the boys of summer came to play at Kansas.

Cars of every make and every team carried a remembrance of those injured or lost in the Boston Marathon Bombings. From Swan Racing and Stewart Haas to Hendrick Motorsports the decals varied from ribbons to the logo of Boston Red Sox. Missouri driver, Carl Edwards reflected on the tragedy, “I know I can speak for all of Roush Fenway Racing in saying that our thoughts are with everyone there that’s not only suffered, but all the confusion that’s going on. I don’t think anyone really understands exactly what’s happened yet, and without sounding cliché what Roush is doing is trying to do something to help. Steve Newmark and Jack Roush put together a program where Jack is gonna donate some money to a cause up there to try and help with whatever they need help with, and then we also pledged $100 for every lap that one of the Roush Fenway leads at the race track this weekend.”

The sentiments were echoed by Jimmie Johnson whose Hendrick Motorsports team has a close tie to the tragedy, “I would assume everybody has seen the press release, but last night the shooting that took place unfortunately has some attachment to Hendrick Motorsports. Someone in the engine shop it was his brother, Andrew Collier’s brother, Sean was tragically killed last night. Still a lot of questions going on obviously if anybody has had a chance to watch the new today there still is a lot of chaos taking place in Boston. Trying to gather all that is going on, but a very sad time. My thoughts and prayers are with the Collier family. I certainly know that it is the same thing for all of Hendrick Motorsports. We are one big family and it’s sad and unfortunate to see a fellow teammate and his family going through such a tough time.”

The qualifying for the Sprint Cup cars went off with only one casualty. That casualty was Jeff Gordon. Gordon lost the rear of the car coming out of two and hit the wall with both ends of the car. The No.24 team immediately pulled down the backup car. Gordon, would take the champions provisional to start tail end of the field.

“I was committed. We have been tight, and I wasn’t tight. It felt great coming to the green and I was pretty happy with it through (turns) three and four and I got down into (turns) one and two and I arced it in there just the way I wanted to and got to the yellow line and started picking up the throttle and it just slowly came around. For a second I thought I was going to save it. I lit the tires up to keep it from hitting too hard and now we have a car and an engine that are pretty much done and it’s been a while since I wrecked qualifying.” Gordon said.

The pole was won by Matt Kenseth with a time of 28.145 seconds/191.864 mph around the 1.5 track.  This was Kenseth’s ninth career pole and the first of the 2013 season.

The outside front row belongs to Columbia, Missouri native Carl Edwards with a time of 28.162 seconds/191.748 mph.

The top-4 qualifiers broke the track record in qualifying.

Joe Nemecheck was the lone car to not qualify for the race.

Starting Lineup
STP 400, Kansas Speedway
http://www.speedwaymedia.com/cup/qual.php?race=8
===========================================
Pos. No. Driver Make Speed Time
===========================================
1 20 Matt Kenseth Toyota 191.864 28.145
2 99 Carl Edwards Ford 191.748 28.162
3 17 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. # Ford 191.734 28.164
4 12 Sam Hornish, Jr.(i) Ford 191.401 28.213
5 18 Kyle Busch Toyota 190.853 28.294
6 43 Aric Almirola Ford 190.779 28.305
7 56 Martin Truex Jr. Toyota 190.651 28.324
8 55 Mark Martin Toyota 190.282 28.379
9 39 Ryan Newman Chevrolet 190.221 28.388
10 15 Clint Bowyer Toyota 190.134 28.401
11 16 Greg Biffle Ford 190.067 28.411
12 27 Paul Menard Chevrolet 189.78 28.454
13 78 Kurt Busch Chevrolet 189.534 28.491
14 1 Jamie McMurray Chevrolet 189.221 28.538
15 9 Marcos Ambrose Ford 189.195 28.542
16 11 Brian Vickers(i) Toyota 189.182 28.544
17 29 Kevin Harvick Chevrolet 189.155 28.548
18 14 Tony Stewart Chevrolet 189.023 28.568
19 42 Juan Pablo Montoya Chevrolet 188.758 28.608
20 31 Jeff Burton Chevrolet 188.679 28.62
21 48 Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet 188.442 28.656
22 22 Joey Logano Ford 188.317 28.675
23 88 Dale Earnhardt Jr. Chevrolet 188.311 28.676
24 81 Elliott Sadler(i) Toyota 187.996 28.724
25 10 Danica Patrick # Chevrolet 187.774 28.758
26 34 David Ragan Ford 187.441 28.809
27 5 Kasey Kahne Chevrolet 187.37 28.82
28 38 David Gilliland Ford 187.279 28.834
29 98 Michael McDowell Ford 187.272 28.835
30 13 Casey Mears Ford 186.922 28.889
31 83 David Reutimann Toyota 186.909 28.891
32 93 Travis Kvapil Toyota 186.728 28.919
33 2 Brad Keselowski Ford 186.657 28.93
34 47 Bobby Labonte Toyota 186.561 28.945
35 19 Mike Bliss(i) Toyota 186.528 28.95
36 35 Josh Wise(i) Ford 186.419 28.967
37 32 Timmy Hill # Ford 185.688 Owner Points
38 30 David Stremme Toyota 185.65 Owner Points
39 33 Landon Cassill Chevrolet 185.274 Owner Points
40 36 JJ Yeley Chevrolet 185.185 Owner Points
41 51 Regan Smith(i) Chevrolet 184.818 Owner Points
42 7 Dave Blaney Chevrolet 183.811 Owner Points
43 24 Jeff Gordon Chevrolet 0 Owner Points

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of SpeedwayMedia.com

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