Busch brothers fill front row at Texas

FORT WORTH, Texas — Move over, brother.

The Busch brothers from Las Vegas will start on the front row for the second time in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series after younger brother Kyle set a Texas qualifying record with a lap of 196.299 mph Friday. That knocked Kurt off the pole, but not off the front row for tonight’s NRA 500.

“Not too shabby of a day. ... I feel like we have a good piece for the race,” Kyle Busch said. “It felt that good. Sometimes you feel that good and it’s not very fast.”

Kyle Busch went almost immediately from the Cup qualifying run in his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota to climbing into his Nationwide car and starting second in that race. He went on to win.

In Cup qualifying, Kurt Busch posted a lap of 195.688 mph in his Chevrolet before losing the pole to his brother.

“A track record is a small feather in the cap (for Kyle),” Kurt said. “The fact that it’s Kyle, I wouldn’t want to lose to anybody other than him, but it is bitter that I did lose to him.”

Series points leader Jimmie Johnson, who won at Texas last fall, starts seventh after a lap of 194.503 mph in his Chevrolet. Richard Petty teammates Aric Almirola and Marcos Ambrose start their Fords in the second row.

The only time the Busch brothers started on the front row together was at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 2009, when Kyle also had the pole position and won the race. Kurt finished 23rd.

They never have finished 1-2 in a Sprint Cup race, but they came close at Texas. Kurt Busch won the 2009 fall race on a weekend when Kyle was trying to win all three of NASCAR’s national series on the same weekend. Kyle ran out of fuel late and finished 11th.

“The two of us had the fastest two cars,” Kurt Busch said.

Kyle Busch gained his second Cup pole this season, and the first ever at Texas. Kurt Busch’s best qualifying spot this year had been 10th at California, though he has two top-five finishes in the No. 78 owned by Barney Visser.

“Real happy with the way the car unloaded right off the truck,” he said. “For us to be second, outside pole, it’s a great achievement from where we had been in a few weeks past for qualifying.”

Greg Biffle, who won at Texas last April, qualified 35th in his Ford after a lap of 190.921 mph.

“I was kind of tight in the middle of (turns) three and four and had to come out of the gas,” Biffle said. “I had a really, really fast car, but we’ll have to come from the back. It will be all right.”

There admittedly is an extra emphasis and a different sense of urgency this weekend for Biffle, who struggled to a 17th-place finish last month at Las Vegas. That track is similar to Texas and the only 1½-mile circuit NASCAR visited the first six races this season.

“We plain and simply screwed up at Vegas and I take most of the blame for that. We were just way off with the new car,” said Biffle, who has gotten all 18 of his career wins on longer tracks. “This track feels good. I had really good speed here. ... I think we have a good chance at winning. Right place, right time.”

The 25th Cup race at the Texas speedway, which opened in 1997 and started hosting two races a year in 2005, will be the first night race of the season — and for the new Gen-6 cars.

While Biffle won at Texas last April, Johnson held off Brad Keselowski in a 1-2 white-knuckle finish last November. Johnson and Keselowski slammed together near the start-finish line after a late restart, but managed to maintain control in a wild few closing laps when they stayed in close proximity.

“We raced right to that ragged edge and pulled it off,” Johnson said Friday. “Of course I had a good perspective of it after the race when I watched the video and I smiled. That is just good hard racing.”

The fall victory kept Johnson ahead in points with two races to go, but Keselowski went on to win the championship.

After winning last week at Martinsville and leading a career-high 346 laps, Johnson has the series points lead. Right behind him is Keselowski, who has five finishes in the top six this season.