Marcos Ambrose Wins Pole, Looks to Successfully Defend 2012 Watkins Glen Win

Through the first 21 races of the 2013 Sprint Cup Series season, no driver has successfully defended a race win from 2012.

Marcos Ambrose took a big step toward becoming the first driver to do just that when he qualified on the pole for Sunday's Cheez-It 355 at Watkins Glen.

Ambrose won the pole with a fast lap of 128.241 miles per hour. The lap took him 68.777 seconds to complete on the 2.45-mile road course. Ambrose's pole-winning lap also set a new track record.

Clint Bowyer, Martin Truex Jr., A.J. Allmendinger and Kyle Busch round out Sunday's top-five starters. The 10 fastest drivers in qualifying all broke the old track record of 127.02 miles per hour, set by Juan Pablo Montoya one year ago.

This is the third pole win of Ambrose's career, and it is his first at Watkins Glen.

Ambrose will lead the field to the green flag in Sunday's race looking to score his third career win. His previous two wins are in this very race, where he is the two-time defending race winner.

Ambrose scored the win in the 2012 race in dramatic fashion. Upon taking the white flag, second-place driver Brad Keselowski got into the back bumper of leader Busch.

The contact sent Busch spinning, while Keselowski got away with the lead with Ambrose right behind him in second place.

The two drivers made contact multiple times during the last lap, with Ambrose finally getting around Keselowski's No. 2 car on the outside. He held on to win the race by .571 seconds.

Only 43 cars attempted to qualify for Sunday's race, so there were no drivers who failed to make it into the field.

Sunday's race will mark the first Sprint Cup Series race since the 1998 season finale at Atlanta where three-time series champion Tony Stewart will not be in the field. Stewart is recovering from a broken leg suffered in a sprint car race on Monday night.

The green flag for the Cheez-It 355 is set to wave at approximately 1:18 p.m. ET with television coverage on ESPN.