session lasted forty-five minutes, while the third and final session lasted sixty minutes. During the first practice session, Stewart, who was racing for the Stewart Haas Racing team, was the quickest ahead of Hamlin in the second position and Juan Pablo Montoya in the third position. Biffle came in fourth and David Reutimann finished fifth. Bowyer, David Ragan, A. J. Allmendinger, Gordon, and Joey Logano in that order rounded out the ten drivers who were quickest in the session. After the practice sessions during qualification, forty-eight cars were entered but only forty-three was able to race because of NASCAR's qualifying procedure. Hamlin clinched the ninth pole position of his career with a time of 19.518 seconds. He was joined on the front row of the grid by Marcos Ambrose. Biffle qualified third, Ryan Newman took fourth, and Montoya started fifth. Johnson, one of the drivers in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, qualified nineteenth while Harvick was scored thirty-sixth. Michael McDowell, Johnny Sauter, Robby Gordon, and Terry Cook failed to qualify for the race while Dennis Setzer withdrew from qualifying. Once the qualifying session was completed, Hamlin commented: We spent all day working on qualifying trying to get the pole—trying to get that first pit stall because obviously we do feel like it's very important. I think if I’m ahead of the 48 then I could possibly set the tone in whether he leads a lap or not. That's a 10-point swing. That's a little bit of it. It all starts today and that's where our strategy's at. Other than that, I plan on trying to go out there and lead the most laps and win the race—just like everyone else is. The next morning, Brad Keselowski was the quickest in the second practice session, ahead of Bowyer in the second place and Harvick in the third place. Allmendinger was the fourth quickest, and Ambrose finished fifth. Burton, Jamie McMurray, Bobby Labonte, Ragan, and Johnson followed in the top ten in that order. Carl Edwards was twenty-sixth and Kyle Busch was twenty-seventh. During the third and final practice session, Biffle was the quickest with the fastest time of 19.799 seconds. Burton and Bowyer followed in second and third places with times of 19.866 and 19.867 seconds respectively. McMurray was the fourth fastest driver ahead of Harvick, who finished fifth, and Johnson, who finished sixth. Gordon finished seventh, Hamlin took eighth,