Kyle Busch won the Coors Light Pole Award for the 53rd Annual Food City 500 with a track record qualifying lap of 14.813 seconds, 129.535 mph. This is his 11th pole in 297 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races. This is his first pole and third top-10 start in 2013. This is his first pole in 17 races at Bristol Motor Speedway. He has five wins at the track. Kasey Kahne (second) posted his fourth top-10 start of 2013 and his 10th in 19 races at Bristol Motor Speedway. His qualifying speed of 128.995 mph was also above the previous track qualifying record set by Ryan Newman in 2003. Denny Hamlin (third) posted his fourth top-10 start at Bristol Motor Speedway. It is his third in four races this season. (NASCAR Statistics)(3-15-2013) Hamlin discusses dropping appeal of fine: From #11-Denny Hamlins Friday media availability: How do you feel about having this incident concluded? ‘The biggest thing is I think that we won in the judge of the people and their opinion I think some of the peers of mine “ at least the ones that have a backbone had the nerve to stick up for what they know is right and wrong “ agreed. But what was the point in going another week or so. Weve got bigger fish to fry than to argue over what I said just for $25,000 and its better just to move on and let NASCAR get its credibility back and theyre going to do that and Im going to move on and just focus on a championship.” Is this something that Joe Gibbs helped to mediate? ‘No, (Joe) Gibbs (team owner, Joe Gibbs Racing) really supported “ whatever I wanted to do, he was fine with it. Ultimately, I had some conversations with Brian France (NASCAR CEO) and we had a lot of the same ideas. And I think that in hindsight I really believe they (NASCAR) overreacted and I believe that they think they overreacted once they thought about it a little bit, but now were at a point that were good with each other and were just going to move on from here.” Did you drop the appeal once you knew they wouldnt suspend you? ‘I was prepared either way, honestly. They (NASCAR) are ultimately not going to want to suspend “ that would be their last resort. I was prepared to do it and I let my sponsors and everyone know that its a possibility, so everyone was behind me to do whatever I wanted to do. But, ultimately after talking with NASCAR and (Joe) Gibbs (team owner, Joe Gibbs Racing) and everyone and really thinking about it more, it just needed to end.” Did your conversation with Brian France end with you feeling you could talk to him? ‘That was the biggest complaint I had was that if I was Jeff Gordon, Tony (Stewart), Dale (Earnhardt) Jr. or any Hendrick (Motorsports) driver “ lets just say that “ they would have had a conversation with me before. Just to slap the fine on me and not tell me anything is what really, really bugged me a lot. That felt like I had not earned my place in this sport and Ive grinded it out here for eight years and I really feel like Ive done what it takes to earn the respect of both my peers and NASCAR and I felt like if I had been somebody else the outcome may have been different.”(Toyota PR)
