Truex grabs Busch pole
Martin Truex Jr., clinging to a rapidly shrinking lead in the Busch Series, set a qualifying record for Kansas Speedway on Friday with a lap of 178.938 mph in his Chevrolet.
The pole is the second of the year for the defending series champion, who leads Clint Bowyer by 26 points going into today’s United Way 300 in Kansas City, Kan. Bowyer will start 10th.
“We tested here a week-and-a-half ago, and didn’t really have such a good test,” Truex said. “We kind of rode around for two days and didn’t seem to learn much, or couldn’t do much to change the way the car handled. But today was a good day.”
On a cool afternoon at the 1 1/2 -mile tri-oval, with highs in the mid-50s, the top three qualifiers all broke the previous Busch record of 178.365 mph set by Michael Waltrip in 2003.
Jon Wood, who won a Craftsman Truck Series race there in 2003, qualified second at 178.832 in a Ford. Regan Smith, in a Dodge, was third at 178.761.
“I don’t know if it’s just that we have a good package for our mile-and-a-half race tracks or what it is, but we seem to do really well there,” Wood said. “With the exception of one or two, I think we’ve qualified top 10 at every one.”
Truex led Bowyer by 204 points on Aug. 20, but lost ground in the four races since. Last month, he was penalized 25 points for making an obscene gesture in a race at Richmond on Sept. 9.
“We’ve just run into some roadblocks the last month or so,” said Truex, who has not had a top-10 finish since placing sixth at Bristol on Aug. 26. “We’ve had some bad things happen to us and we’ve made some mistakes on and off the track.”
Kasey Kahne qualified fourth and was followed by Jason Leffler, David Green, Greg Biffle, Burney Lamar, Mark Martin and Bowyer.
Joe Nemechek, who swept the Busch and Nextel Cup races at Kansas Speedway last year, qualified 12th.
Kevin Harvick, who qualified 26th, left the track after his laps to return to his home in Winston-Salem, N.C. and visit his ailing father-in-law. He was expected to return for today’s race and Sunday’s Nextel Cup event.
Harvick’s father-in-law, John Paul Linville, has been battling a lingering illness.
Sprague going to Toyota
Three-time NASCAR Truck Series champion Jack Sprague has left his Xpress Motorsports team effective immediately and is expected to join the Toyota ranks.
“Sometimes in this business, certain combinations just don’t work no matter what achievements have been made in the past,” said Dave Fuge, Xpress Motorsports owner. “Jack is a great driver and we wish him the best.”
Sprague, who won the 1997, 1999 and 2001Truck series titles, joined Xpress and its No. 16 Chevrolet in 2004. He won 23 of his 25 races with Hendrick Motorsports, but has won just twice in 47 starts with Xpress.
Nextel Cup driver Bobby Labonte, who won the spring Truck race at Martinsville, Va., will drive the No. 16 in the Oct. 22 race there.
Sprague is expected to join the Toyota team owned by Jeff Wyler as early as next week.