BUSCH

• Logano grabs pole for Nationwide race at Homestead

  
  

  Homestead, FL (Sports Network) - Joey Logano won the pole for Saturday's Nationwide Series season-ending Ford 300 at the Homestead-Miami Speedway. The No.20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota driver rounded the 1.5-mile oval in 31.962 seconds (168.951 m.p.h.).

  The pole victory was Logano's third in 19 career Nationwide starts.

  "I'm pretty excited about that," Logano said. "It was a good pick me up, and we needed that as a race team. We're going to go out there tonight and try to stay up there and get that (owner) championship." The JGR No.20 team currently holds a 28-point owner lead over the Richard Childress Racing No.2 team with Clint Bowyer as their driver.

  Logano, the 18-year-old NASCAR phenom, will move over to the Sprint Cup Series next year to replace Tony Stewart in Gibbs' No.20 car, as Stewart becomes co- owner and driver at Stewart-Haas Racing.

  Starting alongside Logano will be Carl Edwards, who posted a time of 32.114 seconds.

  Edwards enters the season-finale 56 points behind Bowyer in the driver championship standings.

  "Joey did a great job, and that was a great lap," Edwards said. "My Save-A-Lot crew did a really good job, but I probably didn't do the best job driving it. I think it's going to be a good race car." Bowyer will start 13th.

  "We've just been loose from the beginning," Bowyer said. "I think we'll be good in the race though. We qualified terrible at Texas, but drove up there pretty quick. Hopefully we can do the same thing here." If Bowyer finishes eighth or better at Homestead, regardless of Edwards' performance, he will clinch his first series championship.

  Bowyer finished 39th in his first Nationwide race at Homestead in 2004, but has finished eighth, ninth and 11th in the last three races here.

  Edwards has finished second and fourth in his last two Nationwide events in South Florida.

  David Ragan and Jeff Burton will start on the second row, while Jamie McMurray and Brad Keselowski will make up row three.

  Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Denny Hamlin, Bryan Clauson and Mike Bliss will start seventh through 10th, respectively.

  The green flag is scheduled to drop Saturday around 4:30 p.m. (et).

  11/15 14:19:43 ET