Hendrick teams top Richmond Cup grid

Johnson carried the momentum from last weekend's home victory at Fontana to top the session despite an early draw, setting a lap time of 21.378 seconds, at an average speed of 128.298 mph.

"It was just a great lap." Johnson said. "We were really good since we came off the truck and had a great run here in the spring and we were looking forward to come back to Richmond.

"To be able to get that lap that early really says a lot about the car that we have. Maybe the track didn't change us much as everybody first thought, but you would think at the end of this thing it would've gotten faster."

The reigning Nextel Cup champion won the spring race at Richmond starting from fourth and hopes to keep his run going tomorrow. He will try to firmly grab the lead of the standings with another win that would boost him further ahead of his rivals for the title when the Chase starts at Loudon next week.

"Momentum is a lot, especially when you have so many competitive teams and drivers," Johnson added. "The Chase is going to be the best that we've ever had. There's a lot of guys peaking at the right time, a lot of tough competition and I'm just happy to be hitting our stride right now too."

Jeff Gordon, who topped the only practice session of the weekend, ended up more than a tenth of a second off from Johnson's lap, coming short of scoring back-to-back poles at Richmond.

He was among the final drivers to complete his run, as was Kyle Busch, who ended just two thousandths of a second off being on the front row, having scored the Busch Series event pole earlier in the day.

Ryan Newman was best of the rest with the No. 12 Penske Dodge and will start alongside Busch. Behind them local favorite Denny Hamlin will line up fifth beside Bristol winner Carl Edwards.

Kevin Harvick, who sits currently in 12th place in the standings, the last making the Chase, qualified 13th and will share the seventh row of the grid with Kurt Busch, who is just ahead of him in the points.

Harvick won this race a year ago, while Busch did so two years ago. In the middle of that was Dale Earnhardt Jr who won the spring event last year, but his chances of scoring another win at the 0.75-mile oval don't look that good after he qualified 21st.

Juan Pablo Montoya qualified 15th for his second career start at Richmond, one spot better than what he achieved for the spring race. He hopes to be able to improve on his 26th place finish from May.

"It was decent laps, just been too tight," Montoya said. "We were too tight in practice and we only did one qualifying run and we were too tight in the qualifying run so we went back to race trim. We seemed to pick up a lot of front-end grip as it cooled down and the car seems to be very good in and out of the corners. It should be pretty good."

Scott Riggs was the fastest qualifier from the drivers who needed to qualify on time lining up 16th, while the Red Bull drivers had another good day, both of them making the field and starting tomorrow from the 14th row of the grid, Allmendinger slightly edging Vickers.

Michael Waltrip was the only driver from his own team not to qualify as both Dale Jarrett and David Reutimann made the field. Jeremy Mayfield, who is going through some tough times after his father's passing this week, also failed to qualify, as well was Ward Burton and Kevin Lepage.

Tomorrow night's event is an impound race, which means there will be no further practice before the race.

Pos  Driver             Make       Speed    Time
 1.  Jimmie Johnson     Chevrolet  126.298  21.378
 2.  Jeff Gordon        Chevrolet  125.342  21.541  + 0.163
 3.  Kyle Busch         Chevrolet  125.331  21.543  + 0.165
 4.  Ryan Newman        Dodge      125.249  21.557  + 0.179
 5.  Denny Hamlin       Chevrolet  125.087  21.585  + 0.207
 6.  Carl Edwards       Ford       125.017  21.597  + 0.219
 7.  Tony Stewart       Chevrolet  124.931  21.612  + 0.234
 8.  David Ragan        Ford       124.902  21.617  + 0.239
 9.  Elliott Sadler     Dodge      124.740  21.645  + 0.267
10.  Bobby Labonte      Dodge      124.711  21.650  + 0.272
11.  Jeff Burton        Chevrolet  124.700  21.652  + 0.274
12.  Jamie McMurray     Ford       124.654  21.660  + 0.282
13.  Kevin Harvick      Chevrolet  124.642  21.662  + 0.284
14.  Kurt Busch         Dodge      124.614  21.667  + 0.289
15.  Juan Montoya       Dodge      124.573  21.674  + 0.296
16.  Scott Riggs        Dodge      124.498  21.687  + 0.309
17.  Kasey Kahne        Dodge      124.412  21.702  + 0.324
18.  Matt Kenseth       Ford       124.372  21.709  + 0.331
19.  Mark Martin        Chevrolet  124.315  21.719  + 0.341
20.  Clint Bowyer       Chevrolet  124.309  21.720  + 0.342
21.  Dale Earnhardt Jr  Chevrolet  124.309  21.720  + 0.342
22.  Kenny Wallace      Ford       124.155  21.747  + 0.369
23.  Casey Mears        Chevrolet  124.104  21.756  + 0.378
24.  David Reutimann    Toyota     124.047  21.766  + 0.388
25.  Reed Sorenson      Dodge      124.018  21.771  + 0.393
26.  David Stremme      Dodge      123.984  21.777  + 0.399
27.  A.J. Allmendinger  Toyota     123.984  21.777  + 0.399
28.  Brian Vickers      Toyota     123.944  21.784  + 0.406
29.  Dave Blaney        Toyota     123.938  21.785  + 0.407
30.  Kyle Petty         Dodge      123.808  21.808  + 0.430
31.  Joe Nemechek       Chevrolet  123.796  21.810  + 0.432
32.  Dale Jarrett       Toyota     123.694  21.828  + 0.450
33.  Jeff Green         Chevrolet  123.626  21.840  + 0.462
34.  Tony Raines        Chevrolet  123.564  21.851  + 0.473
35.  Johnny Sauter      Chevrolet  123.496  21.863  + 0.485
36.  J.J. Yeley         Chevrolet  123.429  21.875  + 0.497
37.  Greg Biffle        Ford       123.338  21.891  + 0.513
38.  Paul Menard        Chevrolet  123.327  21.893  + 0.515
39.  Robby Gordon       Ford       123.220  21.912  + 0.534
40.  Martin Truex Jr    Chevrolet  123.164  21.922  + 0.544
41.  David Gilliland    Ford       122.968  21.957  + 0.579
42.  Bill Elliott       Ford       121.940  22.142  + 0.764
43.  John Andretti      Dodge      123.108  21.932  + 0.554