McMurray locks up pole for LifeLock.com 400
Reigning Daytona 500 champion Jamie McMurray will be on the pole for tonight's NASCAR Sprint Cup LifeLock.com 400 at Joliet's Chicagoland Speedway.
Claiming his third pole of the season, McMurray's lap time of 29.421 seconds nipped Jimmie Johnson's 29.463 and a 29.528 by Tony Stewart, a two-time winner at Chicagoland Speedway.
"It's really amazing that our qualifying this year, we've been really strong," McMurray said. "We're really happy with the lap today."
Sprint Cup points leader Kevin Harvick, also a two-time Sprint Cup winner at Chicagoland Speedway, qualified 27th. Harvick won the pole for Friday's Nationwide Dollar General 300.
Danica-Mania: All media hands were on deck for Danica Patrick's news conference on Friday. Following her final practice for the Nationwide Dollar General 300, Patrick addressed everything from racing close to her hometown of Roscoe, Ill., to eventually deciding on whether to focus on IndyCar or NASCAR racing in the future.
Having appeared in five previous IndyCar races at Chicagoland Speedway, Patrick also talked about the potential advantage of familiarity with the track.
"This track in an Indy car versus a stock car is completely different," she said. "Other than being familiar with getting in and out of the pits and a little bit about the track, I'm finding it real hard to compare the two cars on the track."
Baby Johnson: Jimmie Johnson's wife, Chandra, gave birth to the couple's first child on Wednesday, a girl, and the four-time defending Sprint Cup champion is in the midst of a whirlwind weekend trying to balance time at the track and at the hospital in North Carolina.
After flying in Friday morning and qualifying in the late afternoon, Johnson planned to fly back home to Charlotte and return to Joliet in time for tonight's LifeLock.com 400. In addition to trying to claim his first Sprint Cup victory at Chicagoland Speedway, he still needs to pick a baby name.
"We're looking forward to getting (Chandra) home Sunday after we get back from the race, and the baby home," Johnson said. "Hopefully we'll have a name by then. I think we have to before we can get her home, so the clock is ticking."
Tightening the belt: To help ease the financial burden of an extensive race week, NASCAR decided to shift Chicagoland Speedway's week from three days to two.
The elimination of Thursday - which in the past featured practice for both races and Sprint Cup qualifying - made for an awfully busy Friday at the track. All the practice, qualifying and news conferences led up to the Nationwide race at night.
Carl Edwards, 12th in the points, liked the idea of a shorter weekend.
"It's good for all the teams, it's good for all the crew members, it's good for the drivers," he said. "I don't exactly understand the economic impact of this weekend versus longer ones, but it sure is nice to come here and race and then go to the next one."
Daytona daze: Drivers still were buzzing about the late wrecks in last week's race in Daytona, including one that wiped out nearly half the field and caused a red-flag stoppage of the race.
Kurt Busch, who found himself in the midst of much of the action but managed to finish seventh, actually wrecked his car after the finish line following contact with Edwards.
"The car didn't deserve to get destroyed like it was," Busch said. "I pinched Carl at the line to try and preserve sixth place, he turned right at the finish line to wreck us and I think collected the 71 car (Mike Bliss)."
Jeff Burton, fifth at Daytona, saw the race as typical crunchtime Daytona racing.
"When you're in a restrictor plate race and you get those cautions late in the race, it's game on," Burton said. "It just is. I didn't think this Daytona race was any different than any other Daytona race."