NASCAR Bristol 2015 qualifying results: Denny Hamlin leads Joe Gibbs Racing sweep of top 3 spots

There’s no slowing Joe Gibbs Racing, which for the second race in a row swept the top-three qualifying positions. This time, it was Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards going 1-2-3 in time trials Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Hamlin’s speed of 131.407 mph broke the previous Bristol track record set by Kevin Harvick a year ago in qualifying for Saturday’s Irwin Tools Night Race. The pole was Hamlin’s second of the season and 22nd of his career.

Bristol was a continuation of what has been a dominating summer stretch that’s seen JGR’s four drivers combine to win six of eight races and seven of the past 12 -- in addition to capturing five of the last six poles. Matt Kenseth led a season-best 73 percent of the laps to win from the pole a week ago at Michigan International Speedway.

Hamlin and Busch will also start on the front row for Friday night’s Xfinity Series race at Bristol.

“It’s just a great day,” Hamlin said. “Our car’s had speed in it all day and it looks like I really got the car working the way I needed it to there in the final practice.”

Said Busch: “A JGR front row for both races ought to be pretty good.”

David Ragan qualified fourth, with defending race-winner Joey Logano fifth.

The strong showing was a boost to Ragan, who was informed earlier in the week that his Michael Waltrip Racing team is closing down at the end of the season. Owner Rob Kauffman is buying a stake in Chip Ganassi Racing and divesting himself of MWR, which he co-owns with Michael Waltrip.

“I feel like we’ve got a good race car,” Ragan said. Yeah, we’re pretty happy with that starting spot.”

Rounding out the top-10 qualifiers were Brad Keselowski, Kevin Harvick, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Clint Bowyer and Jimmie Johnson.

A pair of former Cup Series champions turned in disappointing qualifying efforts. In his final Bristol start before retiring at the conclusion of the season, Jeff Gordon will line up 24th. Tony Stewart snapped his four-race streak of qualifying fifth or better by posting the 40th-fastest time.

“We didn’t qualify very good here the last time we were here and heck, I think this time we were worse than we were the last time,” Gordon said. “The groove is up top there, so I was hoping we were going to qualify better than this. But, it just wasn’t meant to be. I don’t know. We were just really struggling when we put it into qualifying trim.”

Travis Kvapil, Jeb Burton and Reed Sorenson failed to qualify.

Irwin Tools Night Race starting lineup