Hamlin, Logano keep title contenders off front row

Denny Hamlin will start on the pole for Sunday’s season ending Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway after he took the top spot in the final round of qualifying on Friday night. He will pilot the No. 18 Green Brave/Saitama Toyopet Toyota Tundra for Hattori Racing Enterprises (HRE). Kenseth made his NCWTS debut with HRE at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway on October 31, where he finished 17th in what was the team’s first NASCAR national touring series race of 2015.

In an interview with the Associated Press last week, the 2003 Sprint Cup Series champion defended his move – which occurred while running multiple laps and with Logano as the leader -€“ and insisted he had no regrets about dumping the Team Penske driver, who in spinning Kenseth at Kansas ruined Kenseth’s best chance to advance in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. “I think I could have run a tenth faster than we ran”. We certainly missed him, and you miss Matt. So having him back, yeah, we’ve talked about that, and he just kind of shared a few things with me, and then I shared a few things with him. Logano, who had the strongest auto during the Chase and probably should be in the four-driver finale, qualified second.

“Sitting back here and watching Jeff talk and everything, it’s like, man, you know, I thought about it before, but I didn’t think about like how awesome it would be to win his final race”, said Hamlin, who won his third Coors Light Pole Award of the season, his first at Homestead and the 23rd of his career. “I wish none of it would have happened obviously”. We were coming down here to a championship weekend and I wanted to make sure that that matter was behind us with Matt, with Joe Gibbs and so on. “We reacted to that”, France said. “We had a little discussion before practice with NASCAR and met with them a little bit”, Kenseth said. “We’ve always had a good relationship”. I really believe we might have had a shot at this thing. “A couple of mechanical things took us out of the Chase but we hope to go out with a bang on Sunday”. “It was a good conversation”, France said. What was said afterward and done at Talladega and all that, that sort of happened and we didn’t think anything of it. Frankly, as I said, it was a quintessential thing that happens in NASCAR.

France called the Kansas contact “quintessential NASCAR”, but when Kenseth retaliated, NASCAR suspended Kenseth two races.

“We want to bookend the season from the 500 to Homestead and that is our goal this week”. “I say that because of the intense moments that have been created, the performances that are undeniable that are happening primarily because the stakes are higher on any given weekend”. “We issue penalties for two reasons”.

“We all respect you, Matt”, the fan told Kenseth. “It’s going to be a fun race to see who can come out on top”. You know, we just never really recovered from what we did in the first round to make it repeat.