Carl Edwards takes pole position for Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway

SONOMA - Carl Edwards ran the fourth-best practice lap at Sonoma Raceway on Friday. He recorded the fastest circuit of the weekend here in the first round of qualifying Saturday, and was fastest again in the 12-car second round shortly thereafter. Edwards wasn't ready to call himself the favorite for Sunday's Toyota/Save Mart 350, but the guy can't deny his car is firing on all cylinders.

“Every guy who's starting this race, every guy and girl is looking at themselves as the favorite,” Edwards said after qualifying. “But I really do believe our (Joe Gibbs Racing) cars are fast. I believe I've got the best guys on the box, the best pit crew. Yeah, I mean, we're here to win this race.”

Edwards, who won the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race here in 2014, will start from the pole in his No. 19 Stanley Toyota in the 28th running of the road-course event in Sonoma. He averaged 96.301 miles per hour in the first round of qualifying and was nearly as fast in the second round, averaging 95.777 mph and crossing the finish line in 74.799 seconds.

“The first round went really well,” Edwards said. “Went out there and made probably one of the better laps I've ever run here. I didn't need that 10- or 15-minute break between rounds, I had a lot of time to think about my laps. So anyway, the second lap actually went really well. But I thought it was a little faster than that. So we kind of narrowly got the pole.”

A.J. Allmendinger was second in 74.878 seconds, Martin Truex Jr. was third (74.881), Kurt Busch fourth (74.895), Kyle Larson fifth (75.124) and Denny Hamlin sixth (75.167). Rounding out the top 12 were Joey Logano, reigning champion Kyle Busch, Paul Menard, Tony Stewart, Danica Patrick and Brad Keselowski.

Under the current qualifying format, the fastest 12 drivers from Round 1 advance to Round 2. On the outside looking in Saturday were some of NASCAR's biggest names, including Dale Earnhardt Jr. (who will start 13th), six-time Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson (15th), Clint Bowyer (18th), Matt Kenseth (23rd) and current points leader Kevin Harvick (25th).

For Edwards, the best news might have come from the electronic race tracker, which showed that he was Saturday's fastest driver in Turn 11, the right-handed hairpin that has produced a lot of race winners here, and even more wrecks.

“I'm gonna call that luck,” Edwards said. “That corner has bit me a number of different ways. … I can't tell you how many times on the live tracker I've been on the pole until I get to Turn 11 and I've really screwed it up. I'll take it today. It's one of the interesting and most unique parts of this race track, that corner. It's unlike anything else in our sport.”

It's the 19th pole of Edwards' Sprint Cup career, and his third this season. He started first in back-to-back races at Bristol and Richmond in April, and won the race at Bristol. Edwards, 36, is used to success in Sonoma. He's had four other top-10 results here in addition to the 2014 victory, including third-place finishes in 2011 and 2013. Still, this is the first time he's qualified No. 1 at Sonoma Raceway.

Allmendinger, who grew up in Los Gatos, turned in another strong lap at what passes for his home track.

“Daytona's obviously the biggest race in our sport. For me, this ranks up there right with it,” Allmendinger said. “It's close to my hometown. I was taken here with my parents, my dad. We'd be here at the races all the time when I was a little kid. I raced at the go-kart track up there. It's a special race. … A win anywhere is good. But it would be a little bit more special here.”

Qualifying at Sonoma hasn't been a problem for Allmendinger. He won the pole a year ago and qualified second in 2014. Finishing well has been more of a challenge. Allmendinger landed 37th in each of those races.

Saturday's numbers were a nice surprise for the popular, gregarious Allmendinger, who called Friday's practice session “a struggle.” He had the 19th-fastest time in the first session that day, and the 15th-fastest in the second session.

“It wasn't any part of the race track, or wasn't any specific thing,” Allmendinger said. “We just didn't have a lot of speed. The car didn't have a lot of grip. We'd kind of fall off quick on tires. We sat down last night and figured out some stuff.”

A little more tinkering, Allmendinger hopes, and he can produce the second Sprint Cup win of his 10-year career. His first came at the series' other road course, Watkins Glen, in 2014.

While several drivers were unhappy with their setups Saturday, few of them have given up on victory. And with good reason. Though it's notoriously hard to pass in Sonoma, winning the pole hasn't frequently translated to winning the race. In fact, nobody has done both in the same weekend here in 12 years, since Jeff Gordon did it for the third time. Gordon's in the announcer's booth now, calling the race for FS1.

While Allmendinger was tumbling from first to 37th last year, Kyle Busch was climbing from 11th to take the checkered flag.

It's all part of what makes Sonoma so unpredictable.

“At this race you never know what's gonna happen,” Logano said. “It's about strategy, and the fastest car doesn't always win.”

Edwards agrees. His car is finely tuned right now. He knows that won't be enough to win, and that's what he loves about this wavy, 1.99-mile road course.

“There's no other track where you get to drive like this,” Edwards said. “You know, no lap is perfect. You're bouncing off of curbs, you're sliding around, you're spinning the tires, you're locking up brakes. I mean, this is what driving a racecar is about.”

You can reach staff writer Phil Barber at 521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Skinny_Post.