Ganassi sweeps Indy front row

Sorenson, who had topped the only practice session of the day, which had been delayed again due to rain, took his maiden Nextel Cup pole position just a week after winning in the Busch Series at Gateway breaking a 60-race winless streak.

He set a time of 48.858 seconds at an average speed of 184.207 mph, which held all the way through the session as the day's benchmark. Sorenson had been the second car to complete his run but he nevertheless beat his teammate Juan Pablo Montoya by nearly two-tenths of a second.

"It's an awesome place to get our first pole," Sorenson said. "I know it means a lot to Chip and everybody involved and hopefully we can stay up there all day tomorrow. We've got a pretty good race car, it was really good in race trim, we put it in qualifying trim and it was really good as well. It should be pretty good!"

"The two biggest threats were my two teammates. Once Juan went he ran a really good lap but that made me breathe a little bit easier. I was nervous the whole time because going out second we know we could lay down a good lap but we were nervous about it getting cooler. But the sun stayed out for us which was good."

Juan Pablo Montoya secured Ganassi's first ever front-row sweep in the Nextel Cup, but came short of taking pole position for his first NASCAR race at the Brickyard. He still scored his best qualifying result to date and will start in the same grid position from where he won the Indy 500 in 2000.

"Reed has been really fast all day," Montoya said. "I was a little bit ahead of him coming out of the last corner and got really loose and I had to get off the gas. In qualifying [the car] was pretty good but just a little bit too loose everywhere."

"I've been pretty comfortable [on the track], the car runs pretty good. We started pretty bad and we worked a lot on it and right now it's pretty good. I have really good memories from the past here so hopefully we can get something done tomorrow. I think the guy to beat is going to be Reed."

Penske's Ryan Newman made it an all-Dodge top-three in qualifying. He was second when he completed his run but was then bumped from the front row after Montoya completed his only lap.

"This was a good run for us," said Newman. "We have something to look forward to tomorrow. Track position is going to be so important and tyre strategy is going to be playing out as the race goes."

Dale Earnhardt Jr, who was the first car on track in qualifying, emerged as the fastest Chevrolet and will start beside Newman from the second row of the grid. Kasey Kahne rounded up the top five, while the second Penske Dodge from Kurt Busch will start from sixth.

"We ran a good lap," Earnhardt said. "I should have done better. I'm frustrated about that a little bit. I'm pretty positive about tomorrow's possibilities. I think we got a top-five car if we treat it right."

Points leader and four-time winner at Indy Jeff Gordon qualified 21st, two places behind last year's event winner and teammate Jimmie Johnson. Casey Mears was the fastest qualifier among the Hendrick cars in ninth, while Kyle Busch was 18th.

"We've qualified in the front here and we've qualified in the back," Gordon said. "I still think we've got a great shot at winning this race, whether our day was good or bad today. I felt we had a pretty good race car earlier today, even though it was really a big wash with all of the rain we've had."

Six cars failed to qualify for tomorrow's race. The first of them was Joe Nemechek, who was attempting to make the field just a week after being released by Ginn Racing. He drove a Dodge for John Carter but his time, which ranked 41st, was not enough for him to race on Sunday.

AJ Allmendinger, Kevin Lepage, two-time Brickyard winner Dale Jarrett, Jeremy Mayfield and Kenny Wallace also failed to make the field.

Pos  Driver             Make       Speed    Time
 1.  Reed Sorenson      Dodge      184.207  48.858
 2.  Juan Montoya       Dodge      183.494  49.048  +0.190
 3.  Ryan Newman        Dodge      183.475  49.053  +0.195
 4.  Dale Earnhardt Jr  Chevrolet  183.419  49.068  +0.210
 5.  Kasey Kahne        Dodge      183.374  49.080  +0.222
 6.  Kurt Busch         Dodge      183.079  49.159  +0.301
 7.  Jeff Burton        Chevrolet  183.050  49.167  +0.309
 8.  Greg Biffle        Ford       183.023  49.174  +0.316
 9.  Casey Mears        Chevrolet  183.012  49.177  +0.319
10.  Denny Hamlin       Chevrolet  182.804  49.233  +0.375
11.  Tony Raines        Chevrolet  182.756  49.246  +0.388
12.  David Stremme      Dodge      182.708  49.259  +0.401
13.  Mark Martin        Chevrolet  182.656  49.273  +0.415
14.  Tony Stewart       Chevrolet  182.648  49.275  +0.417
15.  Jamie McMurray     Ford       182.604  49.287  +0.429
16.  Scott Riggs        Dodge      182.434  49.333  +0.475
17.  Elliott Sadler     Dodge      182.400  49.342  +0.484
18.  Kyle Busch         Chevrolet  182.201  49.396  +0.538
19.  Jimmie Johnson     Chevrolet  181.826  49.498  +0.640
20.  Kevin Harvick      Chevrolet  181.748  49.519  +0.661
21.  Jeff Gordon        Chevrolet  181.723  49.526  +0.668
22.  Scott Wimmer       Chevrolet  181.605  49.558  +0.700
23.  J.J. Yeley         Chevrolet  181.602  49.559  +0.701
24.  Jeff Green         Chevrolet  181.174  49.676  +0.818
25.  Brian Vickers      Toyota     181.127  49.689  +0.831
26.  Clint Bowyer       Chevrolet  181.116  49.692  +0.834
27.  Dave Blaney        Toyota     181.057  49.708  +0.850
28.  Paul Menard        Chevrolet  181.046  49.711  +0.853
29.  Bobby Labonte      Dodge      180.894  49.753  +0.895
30.  David Ragan        Ford       180.879  49.757  +0.899
31.  Matt Kenseth       Ford       180.854  49.764  +0.906
32.  Bill Elliott       Ford       180.785  49.783  +0.925
33.  Martin Truex Jr    Chevrolet  180.734  49.797  +0.939
34.  David Reutimann    Toyota     180.625  49.827  +0.969
35.  Carl Edwards       Ford       180.618  49.829  +0.971
36.  Ken Schrader       Dodge      180.498  49.862  +1.004
37.  Ricky Rudd         Ford       180.007  49.998  +1.140
38.  David Gilliland    Ford       179.881  50.033  +1.175
39.  Johnny Sauter      Chevrolet  179.712  50.080  +1.222
40.  Ward Burton        Chevrolet  179.655  50.096  +1.238
41.  Kyle Petty         Dodge      179.186  50.227  +1.369
42.  Robby Gordon       Ford       176.890  50.879  +2.021
43.  Terry Labonte      Toyota     Champion's Provisional