Shane Hmiel celebrates his fourth career Busch Pole Award. Credit: Autostock

Hmiel takes fourth career Busch Series pole

Shane Hmiel knocked Martin Truex Jr. from the Busch Pole late in Thursday's qualifying session and will lead the field to the green flag to start Saturday's O'Reilly 300 at Texas Motor Speedway.

O'Reilly 300 Lineup Pos. Driver Speed (mph) 1. S. Hmiel 189.840 2. M. Truex Jr. 189.640 3. C. Edwards 189.480 4. J. Labonte 189.341 5. M. Martin 189.102 Complete lineup, click here

Hmiel toured the 1.5-mile speedway in 28.445 seconds at a speed of 189.840 mph. Truex Jr. clocked in at 28.475/189.640.

Carl Edwards, Justin Labonte and Mark Martin rounded out the top five.

For Hmiel, it's his fourth Busch Pole Award and first since August 2003 at Indianapolis Raceway Park.

He said he's eager to put the ugliness of his incident two weeks ago with Dale Jarrett behind him.

"I would like to put the incident that occurred at Bristol behind us so we can all go forward in a positive manner," Hmiel said. "My team has filed an appeal with NASCAR regarding the penalties that were assessed and we will make the best presentation that we can.

"Like we said before, whatever the decision is, we will respect it and move on with the rest of our season."

Edwards said he was happy with his third-place run.

J. J. Yeley spins through the grass during his qualifying lap. Credit: AP

"That was the freest race car that I've ever qualified and not really messed up," he said. "It was fun, and I'm pretty excited about our Charter Ford's chances on Saturday."

Martin, who is going for three consecutive Busch Series wins in a row, is looking forward to running on Saturday.

"I like places where you can go racing, and I think you can do it here," he said. "The second groove has come in pretty good and we'll see. We've got a lot of great race cars out here, and these things are hard to win and we've been fortunate enough to win two of them, so you never know what this weekend might bring."

Shawna Robinson and Kyle Busch both crashed during qualifying, were unable to complete qualifying laps and failed to qualify for Saturday's race.