Johnson wins Sprint Cup pole at NHMS

Jimmie Johnson won the pole for Sunday's New
Hampshire 301 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race
at NHMS.

LOUDON, NH – Jimmie Johnson on Friday won the pole for the New Hampshire 301 Sprint Cup Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway with speed of 133.971 MPH for his 1st pole of 2016, 1st at New Hampshire and 35th of his career. Johnson has won from the pole 13 times in 34 previous tries.

Kyle Busch will start second, followed by Martin Truex, Jr., Kurt Busch, Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano, Chase Elliott, Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski, AJ Allmendinger, Kasey Kahne, and Tony Stewart.

"I forgot that I even had to come here," Johnson said about forgetting that a driver must go to the media center after winning the pole.

"I knew the car was good," Johnson said. "We had something really weird go on in our mock run. We went back to square one from where we unloaded and the car was fast in all the sessions. We kept progressing, kept our lap count down which was really important. We were able to get into each round and advance to the next on our first lap. It was a trying day for sure but just so proud of this whole race team."

Alex Bowman, subbing for Dale Earnhardt, Jr., will start 20th.

Kyle Busch was fastest in the second round with a speed of 134.080 MPH and will start second, while Logano paced the opening round of qualifying at 133.166 MPH and starts sixth.

40 cars were entered so everyone made the race.

The full qualifying results are below.

The full starting grid is below.