Johnson on another Cup pole

Johnson claimed his second consecutive pole with an impressive lap of 30.846 seconds at an average speed of 175.063 mph, running two thousandths of a second quicker than his best time in the morning practice, where he had been second to Dale Earnhardt Jr.

"I can't believe that we've been on this roll here lately," Johnson said after claiming his second career pole at Kansas. "Qualifying hasn't really been my strength over my whole career in Nextel Cup racing, so we're glad that it's here, coming at an important time."

The reigning Nextel Cup champion, who currently runs fourth in the Chase, concentrated on getting a good balance for qualifying in the morning practice as he has been doing lately. He says his recent run of poles has nothing to do with changing his approach to the race weekend.

"We've tried that for most of the year but just didn't get the reward on Friday even though we've sacrificed race practice," Johnson added.

"Conceptually we've got the car where we want it. We know what we want for the current car and Car of Tomorrow and it's more about fine-tuning. So Friday is about qualifying, Saturday is about the race."

Penske's Ryan Newman ran late in the session and came close to knock down Johnson from pole, ending up just thirty thousandths of a second off from the Hendrick driver's benchmark. However, his time was later disallowed after his car failed the post-qualifying inspection.

As a consequence, Matt Kenseth will start beside Johnson on the front row of the grid, claiming his best qualifying result of the year by taking also the benefit of a late draw, which gave him an edge over rivals thanks to the improving track conditions.

Gillett Evernham's Scott Riggs who was once again the fastest of the drivers who needed to qualify on speed and will start from third on the second row, alongside Chase leader Jeff Gordon who was nearly two tenths off from Johnson.

"Jimmy put a heck of lap up," Gordon said. "I'm happy that we gained some speed from practice. I knew in the first lap that it wasn't that fast to get the pole, so I needed to be a little patient with it so that we could get a solid lap."

Denny Hamlin, who runs last in the title race after crashing with Kyle Petty at Dover, will start fifth beside Dale Earnhardt Jr, who could not translate his speed from practice into qualifying, going in fact two tenths of a second slower and ending up sixth.

Greg Biffle, Kyle Busch, DEI's Martin Truex Jr and Loudon winner Clint Bowyer rounded up the top-ten.

Michael Waltrip qualified eleventh and had the best joint qualifying effort for his team this year as all his cars made the grid and not at the back of the field. Dale Jarrett had his best qualifying of the season ending up 13th, while the team's third car of David Reutimann was 25th.

"I felt like once we put our 'stickers' on, everything would work the way we thought and we would be in," Waltrip said after qualifying for his tenth race of the season. "It's still not any fun, no matter what. There's so much pressure and it's so intense. But, we got in and now we'll concentrate on racing."

Kurt Busch qualified 12th, while Kevin Harvick was 17th, Tony Stewart 19th and Carl Edwards 27th. Jeff Burton was the slowest of the Chase contenders in qualifying and will start down from 34th on the grid on Sunday.

Juan Pablo Montoya had a promising practice session in his first visit to Kansas ending up in eleventh place, but his car was not as good for is qualifying run. He will start Sunday's race from 21st place.

"I thought it was pretty decent, just really tight through [turns] three and four," Montoya said. "Even at the start of the lap, I knew we were going to be really tight through there. But hey, it's the same for everybody, I guess."

Robby Gordon was unable to set a time due to mechanical problems and he will start 41st thanks to his status in the owner points standings.

Dave Blaney got the last spot available on the grid while the two Red Bull Toyotas failed to make the field as well as Ward Burton and Jon Wood.

Pos  Driver              Make        Speed     Time
 1.  Jimmie Johnson      Chevrolet   175.063   30.846
 2.  Matt Kenseth        Ford        174.283   30.984 + 0.138
 3.  Scott Riggs         Dodge       173.964   31.041 + 0.195
 4.  Jeff Gordon         Chevrolet   173.695   31.089 + 0.243
 5.  Denny Hamlin        Chevrolet   173.684   31.091 + 0.245
 6.  Dale Earnhardt Jr   Chevrolet   173.633   31.100 + 0.254
 7.  Greg Biffle         Ford        173.617   31.103 + 0.257
 8.  Kyle Busch          Chevrolet   173.483   31.127 + 0.281
 9.  Martin Truex Jr     Chevrolet   173.455   31.132 + 0.286
10.  Clint Bowyer        Chevrolet   173.338   31.153 + 0.307
11.  Michael Waltrip     Toyota      172.983   31.217 + 0.371
12.  Kurt Busch          Dodge       172.916   31.229 + 0.383
13.  Dale Jarrett        Toyota      172.756   31.258 + 0.412
14.  Reed Sorenson       Dodge       172.623   31.282 + 0.436
15.  Elliott Sadler      Dodge       172.557   31.294 + 0.448
16.  Casey Mears         Chevrolet   172.463   31.311 + 0.465
17.  Kevin Harvick       Chevrolet   172.458   31.312 + 0.466
18.  David Ragan         Ford        172.436   31.316 + 0.470
19.  Tony Stewart        Chevrolet   172.386   31.325 + 0.479
20.  Jamie McMurray      Ford        172.353   31.331 + 0.485
21.  Juan Montoya        Dodge       172.062   31.384 + 0.538
22.  David Gilliland     Ford        172.046   31.387 + 0.541
23.  Paul Menard         Chevrolet   171.734   31.444 + 0.598
24.  Joe Nemechek        Chevrolet   171.717   31.447 + 0.601
25.  David Reutimann     Toyota      171.576   31.473 + 0.627
26.  Jeremy Mayfield     Toyota      171.576   31.473 + 0.627
27.  Carl Edwards        Ford        171.467   31.493 + 0.647
28.  John Andretti       Dodge       171.450   31.496 + 0.650
29.  Kasey Kahne         Dodge       171.439   31.498 + 0.652
30.  Johnny Sauter       Chevrolet   171.434   31.499 + 0.653
31.  JJ Yeley            Chevrolet   171.429   31.500 + 0.654
32.  Bobby Labonte       Dodge       171.287   31.526 + 0.680
33.  Kyle Petty          Dodge       171.119   31.557 + 0.711
34.  Jeff Burton         Chevrolet   171.016   31.576 + 0.730
35.  Ken Schrader        Ford        170.989   31.581 + 0.735
36.  David Stremme       Dodge       170.428   31.685 + 0.839
37.  Jeff Green          Chevrolet   169.956   31.773 + 0.927
38.  Kenny Wallace       Ford        169.492   31.860 + 1.014
39.  Mark Martin         Chevrolet   169.449   31.868 + 1.022
40.  Tony Raines         Chevrolet   169.253   31.905 + 1.059
41.  Robby Gordon        Ford        No time
42.  Ryan Newman         Dodge       174.893   30.876 + 0.030
43.  Dave Blaney         Toyota      171.113   31.558 + 0.712