Joey Logano will roll-off 16th for the Aaron’s 499 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway. The driver of the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford Fusion for Penske Racing turned a lap time of 49.138 seconds at an average of 194.880 mph. Today’s result marks the first time that Logano did not advance to the final round of qualifying.
Keselowski and teammate Joey Logano both advanced to the second round of elimination qualifying for Sunday’s race. The two Ford Fusion drivers were in position and on pace to make it through to the final round of qualifying when they came upon a slow car, which slowed their progress and cost them a shot at going for the pole in the final round.
“We put a lot of work and effort into making it through the week to keep that streak alive today,” said Logano. “It’s unfortunate. We worked the plan perfectly the first session and got up there. All three of us (Keselowski, Logano and drafting partner Michael McDowell) were really in the top five and felt pretty good about that, and then maybe we fell to the back a little too late. We had a good flying lap going and then we caught a group that was three-wide and then somebody else put it four-wide in front of us. Once you’re four-wide there’s nowhere you can go and that killed our run. Then at that point everyone shut down and then the caution comes out and it’s over. It’s kind of a bummer. I would have liked to keep that streak going, but I knew this was gonna be the wild card event.”
The Aaron’s 499 gets underway at 1 p.m. EDT on Sunday with live coverage provided by FOX beginning with a pre-race show at 12:30 p.m.
