Brian Vickers claimed his second Sprint Cup series pole of the season in qualifying for the Crown Royal presents the Russ Friedman 400 at Richmond International Raceway.
The Red Bull driver set a lap of 21.238 seconds at an average speed of 127.131 mph, beating the previous benchmark set by local Denny Hamlin by nearly half a tenth of a second.
Vickers had been on pole earlier this year at Fontana but he had to give up his starting spot for the race after he was forced to change the Toyota engine on his car. This weekend however, he will get to start a race from pole for the first time this season.
"We were definitely not where we wanted to be in practice but the guys made a bunch of great changes there in practice," said Vickers, who won the first of his seven Sprint Cup career poles at this same track five years ago.
"Unfortunately we didn't make those changes until we got in qualifying trim so we were not able to experiment with race trim but we really feel like the change we made that really fixed the car in qualifying trim should apply to the race trim."
Jeff Gordon bumped Hamlin from the front row of the grid and the Joe Gibbs driver will share the second row with Earnhardt Ganassi's Martin Truex Jr, who had been fastest in the first practice session of the day.
Jeff Burton rounded out the top-five while Mike Bliss, driving for Talladega winners Phoenix Racing, was the fastest of the non-guaranteed drivers in sixth, ahead of veteran Mark Martin and rookie Scott Speed.
David Reutimann and Ryan Newman rounded out the top ten, while reigning champion Jimmie Johnson, winner of three of the last four races held at Richmond, was only 15th after topping the last practice session before qualifying.
New points leader Kurt Busch was 17th fastest and three-time Richmond winner Dale Earnhardt Jr was 25th. He needed some bodywork repairs on his car after tangling with Juan Pablo Montoya early during the first practice session of the day.
Todd Bodine and Trevor Boys both failed to qualify.
Pos Driver Car Speed Time Gap
1. Brian Vickers Toyota 127.131 21.238
2. Jeff Gordon Chevrolet 126.844 21.286 + 0.048
3. Denny Hamlin Toyota 126.665 21.316 + 0.078
4. Martin Truex Jr Chevrolet 126.642 21.320 + 0.082
5. Jeff Burton Chevrolet 126.322 21.374 + 0.136
6. Mike Bliss Dodge 126.286 21.380 + 0.142
7. Mark Martin Chevrolet 126.257 21.385 + 0.147
8. Scott Speed Toyota 126.180 21.398 + 0.160
9. David Reutimann Toyota 126.133 21.406 + 0.168
10. Ryan Newman Chevrolet 125.945 21.438 + 0.200
11. David Stremme Dodge 125.927 21.441 + 0.203
12. Clint Bowyer Chevrolet 125.909 21.444 + 0.206
13. Joey Logano Toyota 125.892 21.447 + 0.209
14. Kyle Busch Toyota 125.798 21.463 + 0.225
15. Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet 125.786 21.465 + 0.227
16. Tony Stewart Chevrolet 125.751 21.471 + 0.233
17. Kurt Busch Dodge 125.716 21.477 + 0.239
18. Kasey Kahne Dodge 125.681 21.483 + 0.245
19. Kevin Harvick Chevrolet 125.681 21.483 + 0.245
20. Greg Biffle Ford 125.535 21.508 + 0.270
21. Marcos Ambrose Toyota 125.441 21.524 + 0.286
22. David Ragan Ford 125.424 21.527 + 0.289
23. Reed Sorenson Dodge 125.366 21.537 + 0.299
24. Joe Nemechek Toyota 125.197 21.566 + 0.328
25. Dale Earnhardt Jr Chevrolet 125.023 21.596 + 0.358
26. Dave Blaney Toyota 124.908 21.616 + 0.378
27. Jamie McMurray Ford 124.792 21.636 + 0.398
28. Sam Hornish Jr Dodge 124.763 21.641 + 0.403
29. Juan Montoya Chevrolet 124.700 21.652 + 0.414
30. Michael Waltrip Toyota 124.700 21.652 + 0.414
31. A.J. Allmendinger Dodge 124.683 21.655 + 0.417
32. Elliott Sadler Dodge 124.654 21.660 + 0.422
33. Paul Menard Ford 124.585 21.672 + 0.434
34. David Gilliland Chevrolet 124.579 21.673 + 0.435
35. Matt Kenseth Ford 124.298 21.722 + 0.484
36. Robby Gordon Toyota 124.281 21.725 + 0.487
37. Carl Edwards Ford 124.149 21.748 + 0.510
38. Jeremy Mayfield Toyota 124.127 21.752 + 0.514
39. Scott Riggs Toyota 123.768 21.815 + 0.577
40. Bobby Labonte Ford 123.468 21.868 + 0.630
41. Casey Mears Chevrolet 123.265 21.904 + 0.666
42. John Andretti Chevrolet 122.917 21.966 + 0.728
43. Tony Raines Chevrolet 123.700 21.827 + 0.589
44. Todd Bodine Toyota 123.119 21.930 + 0.692
45. Trevor Boys Dodge 117.228 23.032 + 1.794