Green takes Busch pole at Rockingham

ROCKINGHAM, N.C. -- Young Shane Hmiel backed up last weekend’s impressive fifth-place finish at Daytona International Speedway by qualifying second for Saturday’s Busch Series affair.

He then promptly destroyed the rear end of his Chevrolet.

Moments after posting a 23.871-second lap around the 1.017-mile North Carolina Speedway -- some three hundredths of a second behind pole-sitter Jeff Green -- Hmiel lost control of his ride and backed it into the Turn 1 wall.

Hmiel will be forced into a backup car, and therefore will start at the rear of the field.

“As inexperienced as I am, I just lost it crashed into the wall,” Hmiel said. “If it’d known I was that fast (on the first lap) I’d have come in myself. But qualifying second is pretty big for me in second Busch start ever. It’s pretty nice, a sandwich of Jeff Green and Greg Biffle. That’s pretty big for me.”

Green roared to the Bud Pole -- the first of his career at The Rock and 19th overall -- with a 153.587-second lap in 23.838 seconds.

“Our car ran well off the truck,” Green said. “We started in race mode, so we got 30 laps of race practice and I know how good we’ll be tomorrow. Qualifying (well) is just a bonus. I’m really looking forward to tomorrow. My job is Winston Cup now, so this is about fun. I’m not out chasing points anymore, but I have a good opportunity to win a race.”

Greg Biffle, Mike McLaughlin and Jimmy Spencer rounded out the top five.