Qualifying is usually uneventful.
Sometimes there is a spin or a wall scrape. Sometimes things go really off and a car and driver go for an unintentional ride.
At Martinsville it was uneventful.
Except the first time appearance of Danica Patrick… And Mark Martin in Denny Hamlin’s car… And the snow…
First, the snow. It was actually the day and night before. Rain was forecast but the temperatures dropped and 2 to 4 inches of snow fell. It was mostly to the west of Martinsville but flakes fell and it was wet and cold and people were so buzzed up over snow in April. However, the weather changed rapidly with blue skies and temps in the mid 60’s as qualifying began. The practice sessions went on with only a nod to the snow the day before.
Denny Hamlin… He was injured from hard contact with the inner wall after contact with Joey Logano’s car on the track at Fontana after contact on Twitter after contact at Bristol. Hamlin is recovering and will return when given the green flag by the doctors. In the interim, Mark Martin is at the wheel of the #11 FedEx Toyota. Hamlin’s name is still over the window. Martin’s name is on the windshield. Michael Waltrip is playing musical chairs with Martin’s ride during the #11 run with “Denny Martin”.
Danica Patrick… It is her first full season in the #10 GoDaddy Sprint Cup car and her first ever visit to Martinsville Speedway. So many questions… Yes, so many… Yet it seemed that the only real question during an interview session was the different phrasing of “How well do you think you will do this weekend at Martinsville?” and the different phrasing of the answer, “I’ve not had a chance to run on it yet. It’s a small track and we’ve had some time on similar but not here so it’s very hard to predict…”.
Her qualifying laps put her just off the middle of the pack but then a few more drivers took their laps and she was on the grid at 32nd.
Somebody drove the wrong way during qualifying. We don’t know why. They drove down the front stretch out of turn 1 toward turn 4, spun a 180 and went about their way.
We hardly noticed as the area around Dale Jr.’s #88 was amazingly bare. Usually, from a photographer’s view, it is elbow to elbow and ducking for a shot when Jr. is out by the car. However, Danica Patrick was in order in front of the #88 and pit road around the #10 was packed like a Spring snowball. It is quite possible Dale Jr. could have danced the Macarena on top of the #88 and nobody would have so much as turned a lens…
Tony Stewart and Joey Logano stayed in their stalls or their cars.
Jimmie Johnson won the Coors Light Pole Award while his team mate and fellow Martinsville champion, Jeff Gordon, came in 6th.
An Australian qualified in the second slot… Marcus Ambrose hit the marks just a small fraction of a second behind Johnson.
Like we said. Uneventful.
Full Gallery of Qualifying at Martinsville – CLICK HERE
