FONTANA, Calif.– Jamie McMurray has gone from winning the Daytona 500 to sitting on the pole in California.

After a whirlwind week of appearances and interviews as the champion of NASCAR’s season opener and biggest race, McMurray got back into the cockpit of his No. 1 Chevrolet on Friday and qualified first with a lap of 183.744 mph at the two-mile superspeedway.

Earnhardt Ganassi teammate Juan Pablo Montoya will start alongside McMurray on the front row after a lap of 183.477 mph. Clint Bowyer is third.

 

KEVIN HARVICK believes the concrete patch to fix the pothole at Daytona International Speedway is the right thing to do.

Harvick said Friday that the patch is OK because the track has so much character and that repaving the entire 2½-mile superspeedway should be only an ”absolute last resort.”

The damaged part of the asphalt surface in Turn 2 that forced two delays of more than two hours during Sunday’s Daytona 500 is being repaired with a concrete patch that will be about 6 feet wide and 18 feet long.

 

NATIONWIDE SERIES: Danica Patrick says the tough part of getting ready for another NASCAR race is that she still isn’t sure how things are ”supposed to feel” in a stock car.

Patrick gets another chance this weekend at California after her Nationwide debut ended when she got caught up a 12-car accident just past the halfway mark at Daytona. Her goal this weekend is to finish the race.

 

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