Dale Earnhardt Jr wins Texas pole

Earnhardt won his first pole of the season with a lap at 190.678 miles per hour in his Budweiser Chevrolet Monte Carlo for Dale Earnhardt Inc. In was the third pole of his career.

"That was about the same thing we ran last year, we tweaked it a little bit," Earnhardt said. "It was a big thing for us to get the pole here. We were waiting on this race track so we could get our season back on track.

"This pole is huge. We really needed to get something done. We worked hard all winter long and we have been waiting for some results. We didn't think we would get the pole, but I'm very happy."

The qualifying session was halted for close to 20 minutes after water and oil sprayed from the rear of Jeff Gordon's Chevrolet following his qualification attempt. John Andretti was the next driver to take to the track after Gordon's run, but his Dodge Intrepid brushed the wall after it slipped on the slick track.

Texas native Bobby Labonte gave the Texas Motor Speedway crowd a thrill late in the qualification session when the defending NASCAR Winston Cup champion put his Pontiac on the outside of the front row at 190.463 mph.

Former NASCAR Winston Cup champions Bill Elliott, Rusty Wallace and Terry Labonte were all bumped out of the top 36, which means they were forced to take provisional starting positions to get into Sunday's race. Tony Stewart was the last car bumped out of the field and also had to take a provisional.

Earnhardt is hoping to break a streak where the pole winner has never won in the previous four races at Texas Motor Speedway.

Dale Jarrett was third in a Ford at 190.436 mph followed by Chevrolet's Bobby Hamilton (190.208) and Chevrolet's Steve Park (189.813), Earnhardt's team mate at Dale Earnhardt Inc.

It gave Earnhardt something to celebrate after the death of his father, seven-time NASCAR Winston Cup champion Dale Earnhardt, on February 18 when he was killed on the last lap of the Daytona 500.

Kyle Petty, however, was too slow to make the field and without any provisional starting positions, was forced to load up and head back to North Carolina. Last year's event was the only NASCAR Winston Cup race Petty's son, Adam, was able to compete in. He was killed in a crash at New Hampshire International Speedway six weeks later.

For full qualifying results, click here.