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Vickers takes Michigan Cup pole

Brian Vickers claimed his third pole position of the season in qualifying for the Lifelock 400 at Michigan International Speedway.

Vickers set a lap time of 38.073 seconds at an average speed of 189.110 mph, beating the previous benchmark set by Kyle Busch by more than one tenth of a second.

The Red Bull driver will lead the field at Michigan for the second time in his career, having been on pole at the two-mile oval last August.

“There’s nothing better than being on the pole,” said Vickers, who is still looking for his and Red Bull’s first win in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. “I feel like I’ve got a really good racecar. Our first two race runs this morning were good and hopefully we can make it a little bit better in practice tomorrow and go after a win.”

While Busch qualified second, locking up an all-Toyota front row, reigning champion Jimmie Johnson will start Sunday’s race from third after being fastest during the morning practice session. David Reutimann, who brushed the wall on his first practice run earlier today, came back strong to qualify on the outside of the second row of the grid.

Kurt Busch was the fastest Dodge driver in fifth, while AJ Allmendinger completes the third row with his best qualifying result of the year thus far. Behind him Juan Pablo Montoya was seventh fastest, which will give the Colombian his best ever starting position at Michigan.

Kasey Kahne will share the fourth row of the grid with Montoya, running the Dodge R6P8 engine for only the second time this year, while rounding out the top ten were Clint Bowyer and John Andretti, the latter claiming his best qualifying result of the season. Points leader Tony Stewart will start the race from 11th place.

The best of the Fords was Bill Elliot in 15th as the best of the non-guaranteed drivers, right ahead of Matt Kenseth. The Roush Fenway racers have been tipped as the pre-race favorites, as the leading Ford squad looks for a record 12th win at Michigan, having won earlier this year at Fontana, a similar two-mile oval.

Last year’s winner Dale Earnhardt Jr qualified only 30th, while his team-mate and former points leader Jeff Gordon was 27th. However he will start from the back of the field on Sunday due to his engine blowing up during practice.

Mike Skinner, driving for Tommy Baldwin’s team, was the only driver who failed to qualify.

Pos  Driver             Car        Speed    Time     Gap
 1.  Brian Vickers      Toyota     189.110  38.073s
 2.  Kyle Busch         Toyota     188.536  38.189s  + 0.116s
 3.  Jimmie Johnson     Chevrolet  188.299  38.237s  + 0.164s
 4.  David Reutimann    Toyota     188.137  38.270s  + 0.197s
 5.  Kurt Busch         Dodge      187.950  38.308s  + 0.235s
 6.  AJ Allmendinger    Dodge      187.891  38.320s  + 0.247s
 7.  Juan Montoya       Chevrolet  187.681  38.363s  + 0.290s
 8.  Kasey Kahne        Dodge      187.407  38.419s  + 0.346s
 9.  Clint Bowyer       Chevrolet  187.320  38.437s  + 0.364s
10.  John Andretti      Chevrolet  187.251  38.451s  + 0.378s
11.  Tony Stewart       Chevrolet  187.100  38.482s  + 0.409s
12.  Kevin Harvick      Chevrolet  187.066  38.489s  + 0.416s
13.  Robby Gordon       Toyota     187.066  38.489s  + 0.416s
14.  Denny Hamlin       Toyota     187.062  38.490s  + 0.417s
15.  Bill Elliott       Ford       186.911  38.521s  + 0.448s
16.  Matt Kenseth       Ford       186.882  38.527s  + 0.454s
17.  Bobby Labonte      Ford       186.809  38.542s  + 0.469s
18.  Ryan Newman        Chevrolet  186.727  38.559s  + 0.486s
19.  Martin Truex Jr    Chevrolet  186.635  38.578s  + 0.505s
20.  Greg Biffle        Ford       186.582  38.589s  + 0.516s
21.  Scott Speed        Toyota     186.533  38.599s  + 0.526s
22.  Jeff Burton        Chevrolet  186.509  38.604s  + 0.531s
23.  David Ragan        Ford       186.446  38.617s  + 0.544s
24.  Joey Logano        Toyota     186.427  38.621s  + 0.548s
25.  Elliott Sadler     Dodge      186.287  38.650s  + 0.577s
26.  David Stremme      Dodge      186.282  38.651s  + 0.578s
27.  Jeff Gordon        Chevrolet  186.229  38.662s  + 0.589s
28.  Reed Sorenson      Dodge      186.205  38.667s  + 0.594s
29.  Carl Edwards       Ford       186.046  38.700s  + 0.627s
30.  Dale Earnhardt Jr  Chevrolet  186.003  38.709s  + 0.636s
31.  Jamie McMurray     Ford       185.864  38.738s  + 0.665s
32.  Mark Martin        Chevrolet  185.854  38.740s  + 0.667s
33.  Sam Hornish Jr     Dodge      185.787  38.754s  + 0.681s
34.  Marcos Ambrose     Toyota     185.787  38.754s  + 0.681s
35.  David Gilliland    Chevrolet  185.562  38.801s  + 0.728s
36.  Michael Waltrip    Toyota     185.495  38.815s  + 0.742s
37.  Casey Mears        Chevrolet  185.157  38.886s  + 0.813s
38.  Paul Menard        Ford       185.095  38.899s  + 0.826s
39.  Dave Blaney        Toyota     184.943  38.931s  + 0.858s
40.  Joe Nemechek       Toyota     184.876  38.945s  + 0.872s
41.  Tony Raines        Dodge      184.535  39.017s  + 0.944s
42.  Sterling Marlin    Dodge      184.440  39.037s  + 0.964s
43.  Max Papis          Toyota     183.360  39.267s  + 1.194s

Did not qualify:

     Mike Skinner       Toyota     183.025  39.339s  + 1.266s

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