Ryan Newman claimed Stewart Haas Racing's first pole position in the Sprint Cup series in qualifying for Sunday's Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway.
The driver nicknamed "Rocket Man" set a lap time of 28.651 seconds at an average speed of 188.475 mph. Newman's pole is his eighth at the mile-and-a-half oval in 17 starts, ranking him second in poles at the track behind legendary three-time Cup champion David Pearson.
His achievement comes only five days after his teammate Tony Stewart claimed the first victory for the squad at the same venue in the non-points All-Star race.
"It was just a good lap, I wasn't totally satisfied with it but obviously you don't have to when you have a fast racecar," Newman said after winning his 44th career pole. "If we can sweep the weekend it would be really awesome.
"We'll just keep our chin up, keep doing what we're doing and it's a situation where you can't be satisfied with your performance, you've got to keep working on it and we'll just do that."
Kyle Busch will start Sunday's 600-miler beside Newman, marking his second consecutive front-row start at the event, after winning pole position last year. The Joe Gibbs driver broke the Chevy domination of the session, dropping Jeff Gordon down to the second row of the grid, although he reckoned he made a mistake at turn three, which probably prevented him from beating Newman.
"I shortened Turn 3 and couldn't get back in the gas and just wasn't able to get a good run up off the corner. That's probably where it all was lost," Busch said. "Wish we could've been on the pole two years in a row but it's hard to beat Ryan. We'll take that and see what we can get here in practice Saturday for the 600."
Mark Martin, who had been fastest in practice, set the fourth-fastest time while Jimmie Johnson, who had been second in that same session, ranked fifth putting three Hendrick Motorsports drivers in the top five. With the pole-winning car of Newman also using Hendrick chassis and engines, there were four Hendrick cars in the top five.
Last year's race winner Kasey Kahne qualified sixth ahead of the fastest of the non-guaranteed drivers, Phoenix Racing's Mike Bliss. Red Bull's Brian Vickers was eighth, Juan Pablo Montoya was ninth in his best qualifying effort at the track, while veteran Bill Elliott will start his 800th Sprint Cup race from 10th as the fastest Ford.
"We came with kind of a whole different deal than we had last week and it really paid off," said the 53-year-old. "I've been out of the car for a while and you need to do this stuff every week and it just makes you better, and what we changed from last week to tonight really helped a lot."
Roush Fenway drivers struggled with Greg Biffle the best in 16th place, as did those from Richard Childress Racing with Kevin Harvick the best placed in 22nd.
Dale Earnhardt Jr and Tony Stewart were far from their respective teammates and both will see the green flag wave from the 13th row of the grid.
JJ Yeley, replacing suspended driver Jeremy Mayfield, failed to make the field as did Mike Garvey, Todd Bodine and David Starr.
RESULTS:
Pos Driver Car Speed Time Gap
1. Ryan Newman Chevrolet 188.475 28.651
2. Kyle Busch Toyota 188.258 28.684 + 0.033
3. Jeff Gordon Chevrolet 188.193 28.694 + 0.043
4. Mark Martin Chevrolet 188.166 28.698 + 0.047
5. Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet 187.820 28.751 + 0.100
6. Kasey Kahne Dodge 187.493 28.801 + 0.150
7. Mike Bliss Dodge 187.422 28.812 + 0.161
8. Brian Vickers Toyota 187.396 28.816 + 0.165
9. Juan Montoya Chevrolet 187.188 28.848 + 0.197
10. Bill Elliott Ford 187.169 28.851 + 0.200
11. Joe Nemechek Toyota 187.162 28.852 + 0.201
12. Martin Truex Jr Chevrolet 186.916 28.890 + 0.239
13. Denny Hamlin Toyota 186.864 28.898 + 0.247
14. Joey Logano Toyota 186.832 28.903 + 0.252
15. Elliott Sadler Dodge 186.825 28.904 + 0.253
16. Greg Biffle Ford 186.735 28.918 + 0.267
17. Kurt Busch Dodge 186.599 28.939 + 0.288
18. Scott Speed Toyota 186.574 28.943 + 0.292
19. Carl Edwards Ford 186.548 28.947 + 0.296
20. Bobby Labonte Ford 186.477 28.958 + 0.307
21. David Reutimann Toyota 186.368 28.975 + 0.324
22. Kevin Harvick Chevrolet 186.233 28.996 + 0.345
23. Marcos Ambrose Toyota 186.220 28.998 + 0.347
24. Clint Bowyer Chevrolet 186.181 29.004 + 0.353
25. Dave Blaney Toyota 186.014 29.030 + 0.379
26. Sam Hornish Jr Dodge 185.970 29.037 + 0.386
27. Dale Earnhardt Jr Chevrolet 185.829 29.059 + 0.408
28. Tony Stewart Chevrolet 185.778 29.067 + 0.416
29. David Gilliland Chevrolet 185.707 29.078 + 0.427
30. Matt Kenseth Ford 185.605 29.094 + 0.443
31. Paul Menard Ford 185.592 29.096 + 0.445
32. Max Papis Toyota 185.433 29.121 + 0.470
33. Jamie McMurray Ford 185.319 29.139 + 0.488
34. David Ragan Ford 185.173 29.162 + 0.511
35. David Stremme Dodge 185.096 29.174 + 0.523
36. Casey Mears Chevrolet 184.704 29.236 + 0.585
37. Robby Gordon Toyota 184.590 29.254 + 0.603
38. A.J. Allmendinger Dodge 184.338 29.294 + 0.643
39. Michael Waltrip Toyota 183.949 29.356 + 0.705
40. Jeff Burton Chevrolet 183.281 29.463 + 0.812
41. Tony Raines Chevrolet 183.175 29.480 + 0.829
42. Reed Sorenson Dodge 183.156 29.483 + 0.832
43. Scott Riggs Toyota 184.432 29.279 + 0.628
44. J.J. Yeley Toyota 184.093 29.333 + 0.682
45. Mike Garvey Dodge 182.457 29.596 + 0.945
46. Todd Bodine Toyota 182.426 29.601 + 0.950
47. David Starr Dodge 179.081 30.154 + 1.503