Dale Jr. Earns Pole At Atlanta For Kobalt Tools 500

Hampton, GA, United States (AHN) – Four weeks into the NASCAR Sprint Cup season Dale Earnhardt Jr. continues his resurgence back up among NASCAR’s elite performers.

Wheeling the No. 88 Chevrolet of Hendrick Motorsports, Junior was fastest in Friday’s qualifying session and won the pole for Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motorspeedway.

“Well, a lot of credit goes to (crew chief) Lance (McGrew) and the whole team. They worked really hard over the off-season to make us a better race team,” said Junior. “Obviously this track is a place where power is really going to show up. We had a great engine and was able to get us a good lap. The car drove good. It was there for us.”

Junior turned a lap of 192.716 mph at the 1.54-mile race track, which was good enough to edge 2008 race winner Kyle Busch (192.280 mph) for the top spot.

Juan Montoya (192.106 mph) qualified third and was followed by Mark Martin (191.814 mph) and Jeff Gordon (191.774 mph).

It was Earnhardt’s second pole at Atlanta, ninth of his career, and his first since April 2008 at Texas.

 Kasey Kahne, Ryan Newman, Elliott Sadler, David Reutimann and Carl Edwards rounded out the top-10 qualifiers.

“We probably could’ve had a little bit more but not much. It was a good run for the M&M’s Camry. I’m real happy with that and the way the guys and (crew chief) Dave (Rogers) have been working real hard on everything,” said Kyle Busch. “We’ll take that with our Camry and see what we can’t get here tomorrow. We’ll work on some race trim stuff and get better for Sunday.”

Four-time defending series champion Jimmie Johnson, who has won the past two Cup races, qualified 16th.

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