Juan Pablo Montoya will start from pole for the first race of the NASCAR Chase for the Sprint Cup at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
The Colombian set a new track record on the way to the top spot as he recorded a time of 28.545 seconds at an average speed of 133.431 on his second lap, knocking Denny Hamlin off pole by more than three tenths of a second.
Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch also posted faster times that Hamlin but couldn’t match the pace of Montoya.
“This is a brand new racecar and it’s fast so it’s nice to see,” said Montoya who also set the fastest time in the morning practice earlier in the day too.
“Last time we raced here we ran pretty good and with the rain coming some guys stayed out and we didn’t get as good a finish as we should have. Hopefully we have a great sunny day on Sunday and the forecasts look pretty good. We’ve got a car fast enough to win, so we just have to be there at the end.”
Points leader Mark Martin will start the race from 14th place.
