Juan Pablo Montoya Vrooms to Pocono Cup Pole

[media-credit name=”Gary Buchanan” align=”alignright” width=”219″][/media-credit]Driving the No. 42 Target Chevrolet, complete with his face adorning the box of the Kellogg’s Vroom Cereal box, Juan Pablo Montoya scored the Coors Light pole for the 39^th annual Pennsylvania 400.

JPM qualified with a speed of 176.043 mph and a time of 51.124 seconds, winning his first pole in 12 races at Pocono. This was Montoya’s eighth pole in 202 NASCAR Cup Series races and he is now locked into the 2013 Shootout at Daytona.

“That was huge,” Montoya said. “Well to be honest to you I’m not sure if I’m more shocked that I’m on the pole right now or that I’m on the pole in Pocono.”

“This is a big boost for everybody on the Target team,” JPM continued. “We know we’re working hard but to actually get out there and get a pole, I just went through the hauler and they’re all happy and laughing.”

“We really needed something like this as a company,” Montoya said. “This is big for us.”

JPM admitted that he and his team played the strategy card in qualifying, particularly when it came to the unpredictable Pocono weather.

“We looked at the weather and we said it looks like it’s going to rain,” Montoya said. “And if it’s going to rain, we’ll go qualifying runs in the morning. And we did.”

“Do we have the fastest car out there?” Montoya continued. “No, but qualifying is the same as racing.”

“You’ve got to make the right calls and do whatever it takes to get it done,” JPM said. “And that’s what we did.”

Montoya spent time after his qualifying run in the ESPN booth, analyzing the time trials of his competitors. And he admitted that was just a tad bit stressful as he watched others try to unseat his P1 position.

“When the 48 went out and he was dead even with me, I thought I’m dead,” Montoya said. “Can you believe this last freaking car is going to be beat me?”

“But then he missed it and the smile started coming back.”

Both dad to be Denny Hamlin, behind the wheel of the No. 11 FedEx Ground Toyota, and Paul Menard, driver of the No. 27 Menards/Serta Chevrolet, credited going early in the qualifying run, along with some favorable cloud cover, with their second and third place time trials respectively.

Hamlin scored his 12^th top-10 for the season and his 12^th in 14 races at Pocono. Menard posted his fourth top-10 start at Pocono and his fourth in 21 races for the season.

“I’d like to say it was a good run but I’m a little bit disappointed in our run,” Hamlin said. “I think we reaped the benefits of going out early but knowing we were over a quarter second ahead going into the last corner and just missed it.”

“At least we are going to have a good qualifying spot.”

Menard had a bit more of a dicey time getting his P3 qualifying position. He had a problem during practice and had to go to a backup car.

“I wasn’t expecting to qualify in the top three in a backup car,” Menard said. “Obviously that shows the hard work and preparation of the 27 guys and everybody at RCR.”

“We had a good primary car and had a radiator hose that blew out of it and hit the wall,” Menard continued. “We had to pull out the backup car but luckily had two hours to get it ready between practices.”

“It was pretty good right off the truck,” Menard said. “It was the same car we tested with for two days here so we have some good data on it.”

“One of the biggest things that helped us was going out early,” Menard continued. “Standing on pit road, it was cloudy then and the cars that went before us, the sun came out I think.”

“A little bit of luck and a lot of hard work.”

Kasey Kahne, in the No. 5 Farmers Insurance Chevrolet, was the highest qualifying Hendrick Motorsports driver in the fourth position. Marcos Ambrose, in the No. 9 Stanley Ford for Richard Petty Motorsports rounded out the top five in qualifying at Pocono.

There was one driver, Stephen Leicht, who failed to qualify.