Smith Qualifies 17th in Richmond

September 10, 2010

RICHMOND, Va. (Sept. 10, 2010) -- The improvement continues for Regan Smith and the Furniture Row Racing team. The 26-year-old driver produced a solid qualifying effort Friday and will start 17th in Saturday night's Air Guard 400 Sprint Cup race at Richmond International Raceway.

"We bettered our qualifying average by a bunch and that's good news," said Smith, who came into the race with a 27.6 qualifying average. "Actually we had good results in both of our practice sessions today. The test at the Milwaukee Mile last week is paying dividends -- no question about that. Our Furniture Row Chevrolet should be good tomorrow night too."

Smith posted a qualifying lap at the .75-mile oval of 21.359 seconds at 126.410 miles per hour.

The pole winner was Carl Edwards (127.762). Rounding out the top-five in order were: Juan Pablo Montoya, AJ Allmendinger, Clint Bowyer and David Reutimann.

Saturday night's race will be televised on ABC, beginning with a 30-minute prerace show at 5 p.m. MT.