Greg Biffle will lead the field to the green flag tomorrow night after scoring the pole for the Coke Zero 400.
“Yeah, we knew the car had pretty good speed from our practice but we never made a mock qualifying run,” Biffle said of his fast lap. “It was a little bit of unknown and we thought the car had enough speed to be top-10 for sure. If you hit your shift marks perfect and not try to put too much wheel in it entering the corner and be as smooth as you can and not make any mistakes. It is a little uneventful at Daytona but a lot of pressure not to make any little mistakes. I made two decent laps and the car has a lot of speed. We are pretty happy.”
It’s the 13th career pole in 491 races for the driver of the No. 16 Roush Fenway Racing Ford after posting a final round time of 46.643 and a speed of 192.955 mph, first in 129 races, second in 28 races at Daytona International Speedway and first since 2004.
Carl Edwards will start second in his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota after posting a time of 46.693 and a speed of 192.748 mph.
“It’s a great starting spot – congratulations to Greg (Biffle) and all those guys at Roush Fenway, I know they work hard on this program,” Edwards said of his former team. “We would have loved to be on the pole, but starting up front will be great and hopefully we can stay up front. I need to get a win in that column, we have a big zero there from my career here at Daytona so I would like to get a win.”
Kyle Busch will start third in his No. 18 JGR Toyota after posting a time of 46.793 and a speed of 192.336 mph.
“Car felt good,” Busch said of his qualifying lap. “Everything about this Interstate Batteries Camry felt just like the primary car so I’m real excited about that and the preparation and the skill that these guys have here in preparing great race cars for me.”
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. will start fourth in his No. 17 RFR Ford after posting a time of 46.797 and a speed of 192.320 mph.
“It is a good day for the Roush Fenway Ford’s,” Stenhouse said. “It felt good in practice. The Fifth Third Fusion was pretty solid and the guys have been bringing really good cars to the speedways, really fast cars.”
Brad Keselowski will round out the top-five in his No. 2 Team Penske Ford after posting a time of 46.813 and a speed of 192.254 mph.
Austin Dillon will start sixth in his No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet.
“Yeah, it’s good to be fast,” Dillon said of his qualifying effort. “Our car seems to have quite a bit of speed in it. And come tomorrow night, if we can keep it up there, it would be great to win.”
Matt Kenseth will start seventh in his No. 20 JGR Toyota. Jimmie Johnson will start eighth in his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.
“We did a little bit of drafting and enjoyed the car and thought that it had a lot of speed,” Johnson said. “I think we qualified maybe 10th or eighth; so that’s all-in-all, good. It’s always nice to be in the final round of qualifying.”
Denny Hamlin will start ninth in his No. 11 JGR Toyota. Kurt Busch will round out the top-10 starters in his No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet.
Joey Logano will start 11th in his No. 22 Team Penske Ford. Ryan Blaney will round out the 12 drivers that made the final round of qualifying.
Chase Elliott, who scored the pole for the Daytona 500 and Talladega earlier this season, will start 24th. This snaps a three-race pole streak at the restrictor plate races for the No. 24 team.
Regan Smith failed to post a timed lap due to fluid leakage and will start 40th.
Josh Wise was the lone DNQ of the race.
Nineteen Chevrolet’s, 12 Ford’s and nine Toyota’s will comprise the 40-car field for tomorrow night’s race.
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