CONCORD, N.C. — Martin Truex Jr. has been thinking about his return to the Coca-Cola 600 for an entire year.
Truex led a race-high 131 laps in last year’s 600, but ultimately finished fifth after Carl Edwards got better fuel mileage out of his Toyota.
Now in the same equipment as Edwards, Truex and his No. 78 team are hoping they can claim the victory they could have had last year.
Truex took a big step Thursday toward doing that by winning the pole position for Sunday’s Coke 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, his speed of 192.328 mph edging Joey Logano (192.007).
The Furniture Row Racing driver doesn’t have a win this season, but he’s sitting ninth in the point standings after running up front at several races.
“Lucky to be with this group for sure,” Truex said. “Just continuing what we’ve been doing. Cars have been so good and we’ve really had a great season. Just don’t have a lot to show for it.”
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. qualified third, followed by All-Star Race winner Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski.
Greg Biffle, Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick, Edwards and Trevor Bayne rounded out the top 10.
Several big-name drivers didn’t make it to the final round, including Kurt Busch — who was fastest in the day’s only practice session — and brother Kyle Busch, who is looking for his first Charlotte win.
“It was just all over the place,” Kyle Busch said. “Really bad. Not sure what we missed on that.”
Ryan Blaney, Danica Patrick, Tony Stewart and Kyle Larson also missed Round 3.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. will start 25th after failing to advance past the first round.
“Just frustrated,” Earnhardt said. “We weren’t good when we unloaded, and we never really got it better. Qualifying has been rough for us all year, and we showed up really far off.”
Other notables who didn’t make it to Round 2 included Clint Bowyer, Matt Kenseth, Austin Dillon and Kasey Kahne, who qualified 26th to 29th, respectively.
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