LAS VEGAS, NV– One week after Brad Keselowski brought his No.2 Miller Lite Ford to Victory Lane at the Atlanta Motor Speedway, he doubles down and backs up his performance with his first Coors Light Pole Award of the 2017 season at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway and will lead the field to green Sunday afternoon for the Kobalt 400.
The two time winner at LVMS, Keselowski, posted a final round time of 27.881 (193.68 mph). This marks the first ever pole award for Keselowski in “Sin City” and the second consecutive pole award for Ford in the early part of the season.
“We really struggled in turns 1 and 2 but I guess we had a great 3 and 4.” Keselowski said. “If you asked me what it would take, I would have said a good 1 and 2 and we didn’t hit it, but we had a great 3 and 4 and that will put us on the pole which is great.”
“I like that the cars accelerate a lot on the straightaway, I think that’s always really cool. We got darn near 807 horsepower and you want to feel it, you want to feel it kick in and when you slow down in the corners, you can really feel the cars accelerate. Then you have to slow up a lot at the end of the straightaway too, so you really feel like you’re driving them.”
Qualifying in second is the No.78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota of Martin Truex Jr. The New Jersey native was fastest in the afternoon’s practice session and backed up his effort with a final round time of 27.913 (193.453 mph).
“I’m proud of these guys, we’ve had a good car all day long. We really guessed the track would be faster than it was and it messed us up. So we were off in the first round, we gained on it in the second and gained on it again in the third. All in all, the guys did a great job, we just missed it by a little bit tonight.”
Ryan Blaney turned the third-fastest lap (27.92/193.41 mph) in his No.21 Motorcraft/ Quick Lane Ford for Wood Brothers Racing, followed by the birthday boy, Matt Kenseth (27.923/193.389 mph) and last week’s runner up Kyle Larson (27.956/193.161 mph) as they round out the top five.
Joey Logano, Kasey Kahne, Erik Jones, Kyle Busch, Jamie McMurray, Daniel Suarez and Chase Elliott are the rest of the drivers that advanced through all three qualifying rounds.
