Rain gives Johnson Talladega pole

The points leader will start from the front of the field for the third time during the Chase, as NASCAR rules state that the grid is set according to the owner point standing when there is no qualifying session.

Johnson's #48 car leads that ranking, which largely resembles the order in the championship.

"It'll give us a chance to try to get five extra points for leading a lap," said Johnson of his fourth pole of the 2009 season.

"The safest place to race here is leading. If I'm able to stay up front and race around there for a few laps it would be great, but there's so much that you can't anticipate here. We'll chose that first stall down pitroad and hopefully we can use that to our advantage in the race."

Veteran Mark Martin will start beside Johnson, although he said at a track like Talladega the starting order is almost meaningless. However he is optimistic about his chances heading into Sunday's event.

"It doesn't really matter, but I'm thrilled to be in the front row," said Martin. "It's the kind of honour that you enjoy when you've accumulated the kind of success that we've had together.

"I'm proud that what we've accomplished put us on the front row. But it doesn't really matter where you start here. My car was average yesterday in practice and part of that was my fault, but I just feel like this is going to be our lucky day tomorrow."

Jeff Gordon will see the green flag wave from the inside of the second row of the grid beside Tony Stewart. He said his team was expecting rain to hamper qualifying, so his focus during practice was solely on testing in the draft.

"The last few times here it hasn't gone our way," said Gordon, a six-time winner at Talladega who has finished 37th and 38th on his last two outings at the venue.

"I feel like the car was great yesterday. We were anticipating rain today, so we didn't make any qualifying runs. I'm happy because we wouldn't even be close to third (on the grid), so this is positive for us and let's see how it goes from there."

No cars were left out of the field, although Tony Raines had practiced on Friday but withdrew from the event.

Pos  Driver                Car
 1.  Jimmie Johnson        Chevrolet
 2.  Mark Martin           Chevrolet
 3.  Jeff Gordon           Chevrolet
 4.  Tony Stewart          Chevrolet
 5.  Juan Montoya          Chevrolet
 6.  Kurt Busch            Dodge
 7.  Ryan Newman           Chevrolet
 8.  Greg Biffle           Ford
 9.  Denny Hamlin          Toyota
10.  Carl Edwards          Ford
11.  Kasey Kahne           Dodge
12.  Brian Vickers         Toyota
13.  Kyle Busch            Toyota
14.  Matt Kenseth          Ford
15.  Clint Bowyer          Chevrolet
16.  David Reutimann       Toyota
17.  Marcos Ambrose        Toyota
18.  Jeff Burton           Chevrolet
19.  Casey Mears           Chevrolet
20.  Joey Logano           Toyota
21.  Kevin Harvick         Chevrolet
22.  Jamie McMurray        Ford
23.  Martin Truex Jr       Chevrolet
24.  Dale Earnhardt Jr     Chevrolet
25.  AJ Allmendinger       Dodge
26.  Elliott Sadler        Ford
27.  Sam Hornish Jr        Dodge
28.  David Ragan           Ford
29.  Reed Sorenson         Dodge
30.  David Stremme         Dodge
31.  Erik Darnell          Ford
32.  Paul Menard           Ford
33.  Michael Waltrip       Toyota
34.  Robby Gordon          Toyota
35.  John Andretti         Chevrolet
36.  Scott Speed           Toyota
37.  Bobby Labonte         Chevrolet
38.  Brad Keselowski       Chevrolet
39.  Joe Nemechek          Toyota
40.  Dave Blaney           Toyota
41.  Robert Richardson Jr  Toyota
42.  Max Papis             Toyota
43.  Regan Smith           Chevrolet