Almirola on Busch pole at Daytona

Almirola set a speed of 183.741 mph with a lap time of 48.982 seconds in his Joe Gibbs Chevrolet, getting pole position in his first ever qualifying attempt at the 2.5-mile oval. This is Almirola's second pole in only 10 starts in the series.

The first time Almirola was on pole for a Busch race was at the Milwaukee mile in June last year, although he didn't get to drive the car in the race. He was filling in for Nextel Cup driver Denny Hamlin but just for qualifying.

Beside Almirola, Toyota driver Jason Leffler will be lining up on the front row after an impressive run in the No. 38 Camry. He set a speed of 183.587 mph and a laptime of 49.023 seconds.

Best of the Nextel Cup drivers in qualifying was  Martin Truex Jr, who put his Chevrolet fourth on the grid, just ahead of the other Toyota of John Andretti.

Dave Blaney rounded up a succesful qualifying for the Toyotas, lining up eleventh with David Reutimann in twenty-first, making sure all the  Camrys made the field in their first-ever Busch series race.

Juan Pablo Montoya didn't have as good a qualifying as he was hoping, having tuned his car to be quick in his two-lap effort and compromising its balance for the race. He set a speed which ranked him tenth fastest at the time, but then slipped down to sixteenth after every runner completed their two laps.

2006 Busch Series Chamion Kevin Harvick qualified in twenty-first, while some big names from NASCAR´s premier division  failed to make the field for Saturday's race. That was the case for Hendrick Motorsports driver Casey Mears, as well as for Ganassi racer David Stremme and also J.J. Yeley.

The Orbitz 300, first race of the Busch Series calendar starts Saturday at 1:15 PM E.T. (6:15 PM GMT).

Times to be added shortly