INDIANAPOLIS — Denny Hamlin figures this weekend is when NASCAR's real championship contenders begin to separate themselves from the pack. He thinks he's part of that group — and he's off to a pretty good start.
Hamlin won pole position for the Brickyard 400 on Saturday, turning a lap of 182.763 mph in qualifying. And with a good run in the race Sunday, Hamlin figures he can rev up his push for a title.
"This is the turning point of the season," Hamlin said. "We feel like from Indy to Richmond is when you're going to start to see who's going to fight for a championship. Everyone has got their Chase cars prepared, bringing them to the racetrack, starting to tune on them, and that's when you want to start running good."
It's the 11th pole of Hamlin's career and his second this season. Hamlin also won the pole at California.
Hamlin's best finish in six career Brickyard starts is third in 2008. Coming into this weekend, he had never started higher than 10th at the historic 2.5-mile oval.
"I feel like when we come here, we can win every single time," Hamlin said. "You ask me that about a couple other tracks, I would say no."
Carl Edwards qualified second in his first race weekend with new crew chief Chad Norris, followed by Joey Logano, Aric Almirola and Greg Biffle.
Jimmie Johnson qualified sixth, holding on to a wildly loose car.
Jeff Gordon was ninth, Juan Pablo Montoya was 12th and Tony Stewart was 28th.
NASCAR officials disallowed the qualifying time of Michael McDowell after a post-qualifying inspection found that the nitrogen gas in a rear shock absorber on the No. 98 car exceeded the allowable pressure. The No. 19 car driven by Mike Bliss made the race instead.
It was something of a fresh start for Edwards, who lost the championship to Stewart on a tiebreaker last season but is a disappointing 11th in the Sprint Cup Series standings going into Sunday's race. Roush Fenway Racing replaced Bob Osborne as the crew chief for Edwards' car last week, citing an undisclosed health issue that Osborne is dealing with.
Edwards praised his crew for staying focused during the change.
Logano said his crew made significant adjustments during practice, turning a fairly slow car into a fast one.
Penalty hands Indy win to Keselowski
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Brad Keselowski took the lead when Elliott Sadler was penalized for jumping a late restart, then held on to win Saturday in a controversial finish to the first NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Sadler passed Keselowski on a restart with 18 laps to go, but officials ruled that Sadler went too early and black-flagged him. Sadler stayed on the track for several laps, apparently hoping officials would reconsider the penalty, before finally coming in with 12 laps to go and giving up the lead to Keselowski.
Keselowski went unchallenged to the finish on the historic 2.5-mile oval.