Aug 8, 2015 5 min read

After faltering in the final Sprint Cup practice, AJ Allmendinger was searching for answers.

He found them Saturday, winning the pole in knockout qualifying at Watkins Glen International in New York.

Allmendinger turned a fast lap of 127.839 mph to beat Martin Truex Jr. for the top spot. After being 28th in final practice Friday, that was a huge relief for the defending race winner.

“It means we lead the field to Turn 1, at least,” Allmendinger said. “I was frustrated yesterday. I was overdriving, trying to get more than was there. I didn’t do a good job.”

He did when it counted, besting Truex by three-tenths of a second around the 2.45-mile layout.

A year ago, Allmendinger won a fender-bashing duel with Marcos Ambrose at the end to win his first Sprint Cup race, but his pole win at Sonoma in June was for naught when a fuel pickup issue relegated him to a 37th-place finish.

“Going into tomorrow I feel happy with what we’ve got,” Allmendinger said. “We’ll see. It’s a tough race. Hopefully, we’re reliving last year. It’s so critical around here (to start up front). Everybody’s so close. It’s tough to pass. You start beating and banging on each other. Your fenders get torn up. It’s a good start. Strategy plays a lot in this race.”

Five-time Watkins Glen winner Tony Stewart qualified third. He was competing less than 24 hours after the family of a driver struck and killed by Stewart’s car on an upstate New York dirt track a year ago filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the NASCAR star.

Kevin Harvick was fourth, followed by Jeff Gordon, Kyle Larson, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Sonoma winner Kyle Busch, Jimmie Johnson and Austin Dillon. Brad Keselowski and Justin Allgaier rounded out the top 12.

Busch, who is just outside the top 30 in points, is starting in a good spot with five races left in NASCAR’s regular season. Busch, who has four wins, needs to be in the top 30 in points to make the Chase for the Sprint Cup title. He trails 30th-place David Gilliland by 13 points and Gilliland qualified 37th.

Only minutes after Joey Logano took the pole for the Xfinity Series race with a record speed, he failed to crack the top 12 to make the final round in qualifying and will start 16th.

“I needed to go faster,” Logano said. “I had a good first lap, but everyone picks up so much on their second lap that you’ve got to go out and run again. I didn’t get a clean lap and couldn’t get everything out of it. We’ll have our work cut out. I think we’re decent, but it’s going to take a while to get up there.”

For Gordon, it will be the final road race of his impressive career, and he’ll be trying to extend his NASCAR record for road course wins to an even 10.

“Based on yesterday, I felt the car was really solid and we could get a little bit more out of it,” the four-time Cup champion said. “That just didn’t happen. We ran a little bit slower than we did yesterday, but still, fifth is a great starting place at Watkins Glen.”

Gordon was nearly a half-second faster than the rest of the field in final practice and the pole winner a year ago. Still, he’s in a good spot, too, because starting up front on the high-speed track is critical.

Nine of 32 Cup races at Watkins Glen have been won from the pole, the most recent Kyle Busch in 2008, and two have been won from second. A top-five starting position has produced 21 wins and no race has been won from a starting position outside the top 20.

Logano wins Xfinity race: Joey Logano won the NASCAR Xfinity race at Watkins Glen International Saturday, outdueling Penske Racing teammate Brad Keselowski.

Logano, who started from pole, overcame a stop-and-go penalty early in the caution-filled race and kept Keselowski at bay after a restart with four laps to go in the 82-lap race. It’s the first road course win of his career and 25th in NASCAR’s second-tier series.

The Penske duo led all but three laps in a race on the 2.45-mile layout that was delayed by seven cautions for 20 laps.

Series points leader Chris Buescher was third, followed by Boris Said and Ty Dillon.

Regan Smith, fourth in points, finished 20th after running in the top 10 early in the race. Smith rallied from early troubles but was doomed to a bad finish after being taken out by Dillon late in the race, and the two nearly came to blows after the race.

Chase Elliott, second in points, was seventh.

Road America back on IndyCar schedule: IndyCar officials announced next year’s schedule will include a race at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis.

Practice and qualifying on the 14-turn, 4.048-mile road course will be held June 24-25. The race is set for June 26.

Twenty-five races were held at Road America from 1982-2007, some with the now defunct Champ Car Series – IndyCar’s rival during the open-wheel split.

The schedule released Saturday shows next year’s race will be the first since the two series merged in 2008.

Derrick Walker, IndyCar’s outgoing president of competition, called the venue, built in 1955, a “classic road course” with challenging corners that takes advantage of the natural terrain.

The series had already announced it would hold street race in Boston next season.