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Kenseth takes Darlington Cup pole

Matt Kenseth claimed his first pole position of the season in qualifying for the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway

In a rare result for the Roush Fenway driver who had not been on pole since 2005, he was able to beat the opposition at one of NASCAR's toughest tracks. He set a lap of 27.394 seconds at an average speed of 179.514 mph during a delayed qualifying session following heavy rain in the early afternoon.

"Whenever you run that fast it's the car," said Kenseth after scoring the fourth pole position of his career. "You can only go as fast as the car will carry you and the team did a great job of giving me a fast car today, so I'm really looking forward to tomorrow night."

Jeff Gordon, who had been fastest in the final practice session, came closest to beating Kenseth's benchmark, deciding to run only one lap after feeling there was nothing else he could have extracted out of his car. The points leader came within a tenth of a second of the polesitter.

Ryan Newman was third, making the second row of the grid for the second time this year, while Sam Hornish Jr surprised with an impressive first qualifying lap which ranked him fourth at the end of the session, following a few brushes with the wall and a spin during practice.

"The lap was good," said Hornish. "We were pretty devastated when it started raining before qualifying because we knew that we could qualify a lot better than 30th. We were really happy that everything dried up and had the opportunity to go out and make a qualifying lap."

Also impressive was Joey Logano, who claimed his best qualifying result of his rookie season thus far with fifth. The Joe Gibbs driver was fastest among the Toyotas in his first outing at the track known as 'too tough to tame'.

Marcos Ambrose rounded out the top ten in a strong effort for the Australian, while two-time Darlington winner Greg Biffle will start behind him in 11th, sharing the sixth row with veteran Mark Martin.

Behind them Casey Mears will start 13th - his best starting spot of the year - while last year's winner Kyle Busch will line up beside him.

Reigning champion Jimmie Johnson crashed after losing control of his car at turn four and thus he was unable to set a time. He will see the green flag wave from the penultimate row of the grid.

Before qualifying David Reutimann and rookie Scott Speed were forced to change to their back-up cars following contact with the barrier during the first practice session of the day.

Speed had a further brush with it in the second session and then failed to make the field on his qualifying attempt. Jeremy Mayfield also failed to qualify.

Pos  Driver              Car        Speed    Time     Gap
 1.  Matt Kenseth        Ford       179.514  27.394
 2.  Jeff Gordon         Chevrolet  178.861  27.494   + 0.100
 3.  Ryan Newman         Chevrolet  178.757  27.510   + 0.116
 4.  Sam Hornish Jr      Dodge      178.744  27.512   + 0.118
 5.  Joey Logano         Toyota     178.549  27.542   + 0.148
 6.  Jeff Burton         Chevrolet  178.510  27.548   + 0.154
 7.  Kasey Kahne         Dodge      178.407  27.564   + 0.170
 8.  Kurt Busch          Dodge      178.400  27.565   + 0.171
 9.  Carl Edwards        Ford       178.019  27.624   + 0.230
10.  Marcos Ambrose      Toyota     177.826  27.654   + 0.260
11.  Greg Biffle         Ford       177.646  27.682   + 0.288
12.  Mark Martin         Chevrolet  177.300  27.736   + 0.342
13.  Casey Mears         Chevrolet  177.300  27.736   + 0.342
14.  Kyle Busch          Toyota     177.039  27.777   + 0.383
15.  David Ragan         Ford       177.007  27.782   + 0.388
16.  Martin Truex Jr     Chevrolet  176.911  27.797   + 0.403
17.  Clint Bowyer        Chevrolet  176.892  27.800   + 0.406
18.  Tony Stewart        Chevrolet  176.594  27.847   + 0.453
19.  Elliott Sadler      Dodge      176.555  27.853   + 0.459
20.  Jamie McMurray      Ford       176.423  27.874   + 0.480
21.  David Reutimann     Toyota     176.347  27.886   + 0.492
22.  Max Papis           Toyota     176.328  27.889   + 0.495
23.  Denny Hamlin        Toyota     176.264  27.899   + 0.505
24.  Kevin Harvick       Chevrolet  176.138  27.919   + 0.525
25.  Juan Montoya        Chevrolet  176.050  27.933   + 0.539
26.  Dale Earnhardt Jr   Chevrolet  175.980  27.944   + 0.550
27.  Bobby Labonte       Ford       175.968  27.946   + 0.552
28.  Robby Gordon        Toyota     175.735  27.983   + 0.589
29.  Regan Smith         Chevrolet  175.629  28.000   + 0.606
30.  David Gilliland     Chevrolet  175.441  28.030   + 0.636
31.  Brad Keselowski     Chevrolet  175.434  28.031   + 0.637
32.  Joe Nemechek        Toyota     175.266  28.058   + 0.664
33.  Dave Blaney         Toyota     175.247  28.061   + 0.667
34.  David Stremme       Dodge      175.053  28.092   + 0.698
35.  Brian Vickers       Toyota     174.860  28.123   + 0.729
36.  Michael Waltrip     Toyota     174.773  28.137   + 0.743
37.  Scott Riggs         Toyota     174.724  28.145   + 0.751
38.  A.J. Allmendinger   Dodge      174.525  28.177   + 0.783
39.  Tony Raines         Chevrolet  173.847  28.287   + 0.893
40.  Paul Menard         Ford       173.088  28.411   + 1.017
41.  Reed Sorenson       Dodge      172.058  28.581   + 1.187
42.  Jimmie Johnson      Chevrolet     -       -         -
43.  Sterling Marlin     Dodge      174.402  28.197   + 0.803
44.  Jeremy Mayfield     Toyota     174.229  28.225   + 0.831
45.  Scott Speed         Toyota     174.013  28.260   + 0.866

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