Dale Earnhardt Jr. will start 18th in Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. Earnhardt’s lap of record was 123.865 mph (15.491 sec.). Current Sprint Cup Series points leader Greg Biffle earned the pole with a lap of 125.215 mph (15.324 sec.) A.J. Allmendinger will start outside the front row in his No. 22 car after posting a speed of 125.207 mph (15.325 sec.).

After his run, Dale Jr. told reporters, “I wish we could have done a little bit better.  It’s a tough place to qualify.  We haven’t done a good job of that in recent history. It’s definitely a little bit of an improvement for us.”

Ryan Newman, Jeff Gordon and Brad Keselowski rounded out the fastest five qualifiers Friday. Regan Smith, Aric Almirola, Carl Edwards, Joey Logano and Kasey Kahne comprised the remainder of the top-10.

A pair of practice sessions for the Food City 500 are scheduled for Saturday at 9:30 a.m. ET and 12 p.m. ET, respectively, with SPEED broadcasting each session live.

Food City 500 coverage begins Sunday at 12 p.m. ET on Fox.

Earnhardt will also drive the No. 5 TaxSlayer.com Chevrolet in Saturday’s Ford EcoBoost 300 Nationwide Series race at the half-mile track. Nationwide Series race coverage begins at 1 p.m. ET Saturday on ESPN.