Mother Nature Sets Starting Order at Bristol

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photo credit: Ron olds (file)

BRISTOL, Tenn. (April 21, 2017) – Rain washed out qualifying Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway so Furniture Row Racing’s Martin Truex Jr. will line up third and Erik Jones 14th for Sunday’s Food City 500 based on the current 2017 NASCAR Cup Series owner point standings.

Truex will start the No. 78 Furniture Row/Denver Mattress Toyota Camry on the inside of Row 2 while Furniture Row Racing teammate Jones will line up the No. 77 Sport Clips Toyota Camry on the outside of Row 7.

Jones was fastest in the afternoon practice session, running a best lap of 15.009 seconds at 127.843 mph on the 0.533-mile high-banked oval. Truex was the fourth fastest of the 39 drivers who posted a time, with a best of 15.113 at 126.964.

Point leader Kyle Larson will start from pole.

DENVER, Colo. (April 18, 2017) – A race track nicknamed The Last Great Colosseum may seem like a foreboding place for a NASCAR Cup Series rookie but for Furniture Row Racing’s Erik Jones it’s a familiar place where he expects to be a strong contender in the No. 77 Sport Clips Toyota Camry.

Jones made his Bristol Motor Speedway debut Aug. 22, 2014, qualifying sixth and finishing eighth in the NASCAR XFINITY Series race for Joe Gibbs Racing. He then qualified on the pole and finished fourth in XFINITY Series race the following spring, and started fourth and finished sixth in his lone NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at the high-banked 0.533-mile oval.

Jones earned a Bristol victory from the pole in the spring 2016 XFINITY Series race and was running ninth in the summer race, after again starting from pole, when a multi-car crash on Lap 245 took him out of the competition for a 33rd-place finish. His overall Bristol record includes one victory, two top-five and four top-10 finishes and three poles in just five starts.

“We’ve always run decent at Bristol Motor Speedway and we got the win there last season in the XFINITY Series so it’s always a lot of fun going back,” said Jones. “I really feel like Bristol is kind of like the tracks where I grew up racing and recently I figured out more about it so, hopefully, I can take a lot of that experience over to the Sport Clips Toyota Camry and we can be just as good.”

Starting Order
Food City 500
Bristol Motor Speedway

1 – Kyle Larson
2 – Chase Elliott
3 – Martin Truex Jr.
4 – Brad Keselowski
5 – Joey Logano
6 – Ryan Blaney
7 – Kyle Busch
8 – Jamie McMurray
9 – Clint Bowyer
10 – Kevin Harvick
11 – Jimmie Johnson
12 – Trevor Bayne
13 – Ryan Newman
14 – Erik Jones
15 – Kurt Busch
16 – Denny Hamlin
17 – Kasey Kahne
18 – Aric Almirola
19 – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
20 – Dale Earnhardt Jr.
21 – Austin Dillon
22 – Matt Kenseth
23 – Daniel Suarez
24 – Ty Dillon
25 – AJ Allmendinger
26 – Paul Menard
27 – Chris Buescher
28 – Michael McDowell
29 – Danica Patrick
30 – Landon Cassill
31 – Cole Whitt
32 – Matt DiBenedetto
33 – David Ragan
34 – Reed Sorenson
35 – Corey LaJoie
36 – Gray Gaulding
37 – Jeffrey Earnhardt
38 – Timmy Hill
39 – Derrike Cope

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Author: Ron Olds

BWR Staff photographer/blogger, avid motorsports fan - Ex-NASCAR Whelen All American Series Offical

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