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Nine drivers break old Cup qualifying record; Keselowski on pole<\/p>\nNine drivers break old Cup qualifying record; Keselowski on pole<\/p>\n
LOUDON, N.H. (July 12, 2013) \u2013 It was a record-breaking afternoon at the Magic Mile. Brad Keselowski zipped around the 1.058-mile oval at 135.922 miles per hour (28.022 seconds), setting a new track qualifying record in the process. It was the second career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career pole at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and the first of the season for the defending Sprint Cup Series champion.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a great race car here, and our race team is ready to hit its stride for the season,\u201d said Keselowski, who enters Sunday\u2019s Camping World RV Sales 301 13th in points. \u201cWe are hungry, we feel we can do it, but I don\u2019t feel a sense of panic.\u201d
\n <\/p>\n
Points leader Jimmie Johnson, whose car needed to re-enter inspection before qualifying for an illegal side skirt and coming in overweight, would have started on the front row next to Keselowski. But Johnson\u2019s No. 48 Lowe\u2019s Chevrolet was deemed too low during a post-qualifying inspection and he was moved to the back of the field.<\/p>\n
Kurt Busch, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kyle Busch and Jeff Gordon round out the top-five qualifiers.<\/p>\n
A total of nine drivers broke the track\u2019s old qualifying record of 135.232 mph (28.165 seconds) set by Ryan Newman back in July of 2011. Carl Edwards, Denny Hamlin, Kasey Kahne and Jeff Burton also broke Newman\u2019s old mark, while Juan Pablo Montoya takes the final spot in the top-10.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Gen-6 car always show speed on the stopwatch,\u201d said Kurt Busch. \u201cThey are fun to drive and another record fell.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson said his side skirt measured one-sixteenth of an inch too long and his car came in one pound overweight. That was corrected before he took the track for qualifying, but another check in the post-qualifying inspection caught another infraction, pushing Johnson from second to the rear of the field.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot so much anger, but anxiety for starting position,\u201d said Johnson, who didn\u2019t find out of his failed inspection until after the post-qualifying press conference. \u201cWe cut it close on time and I had to get my heart rate down with a few deep breaths.\u201d<\/p>\n
NASCAR\u2019s best will race for Loudon the Lobster on Sunday. A limited number of seats for both Saturday and Sunday\u2019s events are still available. To purchase tickets please call the NHMS ticket hotline at (603) 783-4931 or by visiting www.nhms.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nine drivers break old Cup qualifying record; Keselowski on pole LOUDON, N.H. (July 12, 2013) \u2013 It was a record-breaking afternoon at the Magic Mile. Brad Keselowski zipped around the 1.058-mile oval at 135.922 miles per hour (28.022 seconds), setting a new track qualifying record in the process. It was the second career NASCAR Sprint […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,6,20],"tags":[1339],"class_list":["post-11272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-maine-racing-news","category-new-england-racing-news","category-nhms","tag-nhms"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11272\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maineracing.com\/legacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}