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Daytona 500 Qualifying Report
02.06.2010
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series qualifying at Daytona International Speedway is complete.
23rd — Paul Menard, No. 98 Peak/Menards Ford
25th — AJ Allmendinger, No. 43 Best Buy Ford
28th — Kasey Kahne, No. 9 Budweiser Ford
36th — Elliott Sadler, No. 19 Stanley Ford
- The procedure to determine the starting order for the Daytona 500 differs from other NASCAR Sprint Cup Series events. Only the front row is locked in after qualifying. The remainder of the field will be set following the Gatorade Duel 150 events Thursday, February 11.
- The Gatorade Duel 150 races begin at 2 p.m. ET and will broadcast on SPEED TV, MRN Radio and SIRIUS NASCAR Radio.
- The Daytona 500 begins Sunday, February 14 at 1 p.m. ET and will broadcast on FOX TV, MRN Radio and SIRIUS NASCAR Radio.
Driver Quotes:
Paul Menard (No. 98 Peak/Menards Ford Fusion) - “Obviously, you’d like to qualify well, but your focus has to be on the race. At a place like this, you kind of have to give up a little bit of pure speed to get some handling for the race on Sunday and the Gatorade Duel 150s on Thursday. We weren’t planning on sitting on the pole, but being one of the fastest Fords is pretty cool. We picked up a lot from practice yesterday – everybody did. Hopefully, that will give us a good start for the 150 and we can race and have a good handling car where we can race good.”
AJ Allmendinger (No. 43 Best Buy Ford Fusion) - “I think that was a little slower than we wanted to be. Looking at everybody’s times and where we were yesterday, we thought we could be a little better than that. We knew we weren’t gonna be on the pole, and, ultimately, that’s all that really matters here is being on the front row at Daytona. Qualifying is just better for stats, but we’re happy. We’ll get here on Wednesday and get down to real business, get the thing handling good for the Duels and go try to win that.”
Kasey Kahne (No. 9 Budweiser Ford Fusion) - “I was actually really happy with our qualifying run. We picked up close to a second from practice yesterday, so, to me, that was a great lap for our Budweiser Ford. The team has done a great job and the Roush-Yates engines run really well, so it was nice. It was a good pickup and I’m looking forward to the Shootout tonight. I think it’s gonna be a lot of fun. It’s gonna be exciting. I was actually pretty excited coming down here because I thought this would probably be the best I could ever qualify here and I think we should have a pretty decent spot for the Gatorade 150 on Thursday.”
HOW DO YOU LIKE WEARING THE TEAM USA COLORS? “I like it. Budweiser did that with the Olympics coming up and we’re gonna do it here at the 500 and also the following week at Fontana, California. It means a lot to us and it’s all for the Olympians, so it should be a good program.”
Elliott Sadler (No. 19 Stanley Ford Fusion) - “We definitely wanted to run a faster time than what we did, but our hearts are not broken. We want to race good on Thursday in the Gatorade Duel and want to race good on Sunday, so, hopefully, we’ll be able to do that. We’ll work on getting it driving good. That’s what has worked well for us in the past and being the Daytona 500 time has moved up being more in the daytime on Sunday, you’ve got to have it handling so we’ll go to work then and see where we end up. Hopefully, we’ll get a good starting spot for Sunday.”
