NASCAR Sonoma 2015 qualifying results: AJ Allmendinger leads the way

AJ Allmendinger is regarded as NASCAR’s best road course racer, and in qualifying Saturday at Sonoma Raceway he showed why.

Allmendinger’s lap of 96.310 mph earned him the pole for Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350, the first of two road course events of the season. Starting second is Kurt Busch, with Matt Kenseth, Kyle Larson (the fastest Round 1 qualifier) and Jeff Gordon rounding out the top five.

Gordon is NASCAR’s record holder with nine career road course victories, including five at Sonoma. But he tabbed Allmendinger as the favorite Friday when asked who should be viewed as the driver to beat. Allmendinger’s lone Sprint Cup win came last August at Watkins Glen, the other road course that NASCAR’s top division visits yearly.

“We knew that if we go do our job and if I do my job tomorrow, and we have solid pit stops, and we just take care of business, at the end we should give ourselves a chance,” Allmendinger said after winning his third career pole. “And that’s all we can ask for. It’s a solid start, but the prize is (Sunday).”

Clint Bowyer, Tony Stewart, Casey Mears, David Ragan and Brad Keselowski completed the top 10. Stewart’s effort was a positive in what has been a trying season. The three-time Cup champion enters Sonoma with just a single top-10 finish, and he’s ranked 26th in points.

“I just over drove a couple of the corners trying to make up time to try to make a pole run out of it,” Stewart said. “Compared to where we were (Friday), I was really happy with where we ended up today.”

Qualifying was not without incident, as Kyle Busch spun off Turn 10 in the second of two rounds. The single-car spin created a large cloud of smoke and Kurt Busch, Kyle’s older brother, narrowly avoided the prone driver.

Busch recovered to post the 11th-fastest time. Martin Truex Jr. will start 12th.

“I got on the rumble strips there in Turn 9 into (Turn) 10 and shot sideways,” Busch said. “Then, I’m thinking to myself, ‘How am I not going to wreck?’ We were fortunate that Kurt missed us there and we didn’t have any damage from the spin. We were able to make a lap after that, but our tires were obviously used up big time already.”

Brendan Gaughan was the only driver who failed to qualify.

Toyota/Save Mart 350 starting lineup