NASCAR Las Vegas Starting Lineup: Matt Kenseth Wins Pole Position

Matt Kenseth isn’t known as being a good qualifier. But when he has power under his hood like the Fords do this year, it doesn’t matter.

Kenseth won the pole for Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, leading a strong contingent of Ford-powered cars in the starting lineup.

“We get one about every three years,” Kenseth joked. “This was the most nervous I’d been for qualifying in probably five years, because I knew we had a shot at the pole. I was just praying I wouldn’t be the weak link and mess it up like last week.”

It was Kenseth’s fifth career Sprint Cup pole.

Fords took the top four spots, with Kenseth’s track record time (188.884 mph) out-pacing Marcos Ambrose (188.166), Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle.

“The first two rows are Fords, and that’s a testament to how hard the guys have worked at the shop,” Edwards said. “We wanted to see how we would run at this first 1.5-mile track as a test for the season, and so far, it looks really good.”

Hometown favorite Kyle Busch and his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Joey Logano were next, followed by AJ Allmendinger, Ryan Newman, Martin Truex Jr. and Mark Martin – who rounded out the top 10.

Brian Keselowski failed to qualify for his second straight race after making the Daytona 500.

Here’s the starting lineup for Sunday’s race:

Failed to qualify: Brian Keselowski