Edwards

BRISTOL, Tenn. — Roush Fenway Racing continued its strong qualifying runs Friday by sweeping the pole at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Carl Edwards turned a lap of 128.014 mph in a Ford to knock teammate Greg Biffle from the top starting spot for Sunday’s race. Biffle’s lap of 127.622 mph was good enough for second.

It gave a RFR driver the pole for the third consecutive race. Edwards won the pole in Phoenix and Matt Kenseth won the pole at Las Vegas, where Edwards picked up his first win of the season.

Regan Smith qualified a career-best third in a Chevrolet, and his 6.25 qualifying average this season is best in the Sprint Cup Series. Paul Menard was fourth in a Chevy, and David Ragan was fifth to put three Roush drivers in the top five.

“This is fun; the cars have just been great,” Edwards said. “Greg motivated me. I didn’t think anybody was going to be able to go that fast. I thought that the track had slowed down a lot more than that, so I was out there driving my heart out.”

Meanwhile, Goodyear was plagued all day Friday with tire issues when those at Bristol failed to lay enough rubber on the track surface. Typically, as drivers run more laps, rubber grinds into the surface and alleviates excessive wear.

But it didn’t happen after a full day of track activity Friday, even after the sun came out and the track surface got hotter. Drivers were only able to go about 30 laps before their right-side tires wore down to the cords.

So Goodyear called for about 1,300 new tires to be shipped from North Carolina to Bristol in time for the Nationwide Series race on Saturday. Nationwide teams will qualify Saturday morning on the tires already at the track, then switch to the new ones in the race during an early competition caution.