KANSAS CITY, Kan. (May 8, 2015) – Kasey Kahne came very close to capturing his first pole position of 2015, but will start on the front row in his No. 5 Great Clips Chevrolet SS after posting the second-fastest time in qualifying for Saturday night’s SpongeBob SquarePants 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) race at Kansas Speedway. Kahne’s fast lap of 28.138 seconds, 191.911 mph gave him his eighth top-10 start of 2015, and his 10th in 16 races at Kansas Speedway.
A total of seven Chevrolet SS drivers made it to the 12-car field for the final round of qualifying and six will start in the top-10.
Martin Truex, Jr. continued his red-hot start to the 2015 season by scoring a top-five starting position in his Furniture Row/Visser Precision Chevrolet SS. His lap was good enough to be the fourth fastest time, and his second top-five start of the year. Current NSCS point leader Kevin Harvick posted the sixth fastest time in his No. 4 Jimmy John’s/Budweiser Chevrolet SS for Stewart Haas Racing (SHR) while his SHR teammate, Kurt Busch, driver of the No. 41 Haas Automation Chevrolet SS, earned a seventh place starting position.
Missouri native Jamie McMurray put his No. 1 McDonald’s Chevy SS in the ninth position while last week’s pole sitter, Jeff Gordon, made it to the final round of qualifying and an 11th place start for Saturday’s race.
Joey Logano (Ford) won the pole, Brad Keselowski (Ford) was second and Carl Edwards (Toyota) was fifth to round out the top-five qualifiers.
The Spongebob Squarepants 400 at Kansas Speedway is scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, May 9th. Live coverage will be available on FOX Sports 1, MRN, Sirius NASCAR Radio Channel 90 and NASCAR.com.