Franchitti lands maiden NASCAR pole

The Scot set a time of 1:12.696 seconds at an average speed of 121.327 mph. He had set a first lap that had him on pole already, but ran even faster on a second one to edge Sprint Cup regular Robby Gordon by nearly four tenths of a second on his first road course outing in the Nationwide series.

The Ganassi driver, who had failed to qualify in June for his first Sprint Cup road race at Infineon Raceway, was part of the final group of qualifiers along with Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick, Jeff Burton and Max Papis, comfortably beating all of them.

"To qualify on pole is nice," Franchitti told . "It's nice to see what we can do. We've got a long race this afternoon, but to do what we're doing right now, to qualify on pole, is the first step and we'll see what we can do this afternoon.

"I don't know if a weight off my shoulders is a great thing, but this certainly puts a smile on my face. We have a long race ahead of us but at least we're starting there at the right spot, so it's good."

Franchitti has spent the last few weeks in Scotland since he last competed at Chicago a month ago, and in between his time there he tested his Nationwide car at Road Atlanta in preparation for the first of seven outings he has scheduled for the reminder of the season in the No.40 car.

"I think it's a combination of things, getting some time off is good, although I would prefer to be in the car every week, but that didn't happen," Franchitti added. "A lot has got to do with the guys who really came up with a good car for this road course.

"We now have to focus on doing that job every time we're in the car on the ovals too."

Johnson and Denny Hamlin will start behind Franchitti on the second row of the grid, followed by Nationwide regular Brad Keselowski and Harvick, while Sprint Cup points leader Kyle Busch will start from seventh beside Sam Hornish Jr.

Nationwide points leader Clint Bowyer will start the race from 17th, beside Dale Earnhardt Jr.