Hendrick Motorsports Capture Front Row for Daytona 500

Mark Martin, who led the Sprint Cup Series with seven poles last season, kept doing what he did best last season; start on the pole. His teammate, Dale Earnhardt Jr, was not to far behind capturing the outside front row position.

“The challenge was to run one team with two cars, and then to have those two cars down here that ran almost identical times …,” Hendrick said. “I know this is just one race, but no one here, and no one outside our company will know the effort Alan and Lance put into this team and these two cars, and I’m really proud of them.”

“This is such a great accomplishment for the 5 and 88 teams,” Martin said. “That was not an accomplishment of mine. It is one of all our guys on this team. To have Dale Jr. on the outside of the front row, locked in, just means that we are doing stuff right.”

On Thursday, we have the running of the Gatorade Duels to determine where the other drivers will be placed at the running of the Daytona 500. Martin and Earnhardt are safe, but two races will take place with the drivers on the outside row racing each other and the inside row racing each other. Coverage begins on SPEED at 2pm on Thursday afternoon.  Here are the lineups for the Gatorade Duels:

GATORADE DUEL #1

GATORADE DUEL #2