Joey Logano takes surprise pole for Sears Point NASCAR Sprint Cup round

The 21-year-old surprised even himself with his first ever pole position on a road course - only his second at NASCAR's top level - bringing Penske Racing's pole-position streak to a halt with the first of the year for Joe Gibbs Racing.

Logano bumped Ryan Newman from pole position with a lap of 1m16.821s, after the Stewart-Haas racer had been the first to break the 77-second barrier. Earnhardt Ganassi's Jamie McMurray later came closest to the new benchmark, ending up 27 thousandths of a second adrift from the JGR driver's pole.

"This is the last place that I figured we'd get a pole, I don't consider myself a road course expert," said Logano.

"I've never had a top-10 start here and I've never finished that good here either. After practice, I felt like we needed a lot more forward drive and a lot more side-bite in our car. Man, they made it happen. I said, 'Jeez, should have asked for that a long time ago...'

"I was surprised, I felt like my lap was okay, didn't feel like it was stellar by no means. Man, a hell of a lap.

"We are pretty pumped up right now, we needed a momentum change with our team right now. We've been going through a little bit of a drought. This is definitely going to help us a lot."

Logano is on double duty at Sears Point this weekend as besides the Cup event he is also entered in the regional NASCAR K&N Pro Series West race, which he will be starting from the front row on Saturday.

Richard Childress Racing's Paul Menard claimed by far his best ever qualifying result on a road course with third on the grid, while Logano's team-mate Denny Hamlin was fourth. Red Bull's Kasey Kahne was fifth ahead of Richard Petty Motorsports team-mates AJ Allmendinger and Marcos Ambrose, who will share the fourth row of the grid ahead of RCR's Bowyer and Red Bull's Brian Vickers.

Penske's Kurt Busch was on a streak of three pole positions heading into qualifying and had set the pace in the morning practice, getting to go out last in the order to complete his flying lap. However a sideways moment at Turn 4 was compounded by a mistake under braking for Turn 7, which meant he ended up 11th ahead of the Hendrick duo of Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon.

Points leader Carl Edwards was 23rd fastest and admitted to struggling during the day, eventually deciding to stay at Sears Point on Saturday having initially planned to fly to Road America to compete in the Nationwide Series. He will therefore miss a second-tier series race for the first time since June 2005.

Joe Nemechek was the fastest of the non-guaranteed drivers in 31st right behind road course 'ringer' Boris Said, while Tony Ave was the only one left outside the starting field for Sunday's race.

Pos  Driver              Team/Car                     Time       Gap
 1.  Joey Logano         Gibbs Toyota                 1m16.821s
 2.  Jamie McMurray      Earnhardt Ganassi Chevrolet  1m16.848s  + 0.027s
 3.  Paul Menard         Childress Chevrolet          1m16.887s  + 0.066s
 4.  Denny Hamlin        Gibbs Toyota                 1m16.965s  + 0.144s
 5.  Ryan Newman         Stewart Haas Chevrolet       1m16.981s  + 0.160s
 6.  Kasey Kahne         Red Bull Toyota              1m17.085s  + 0.264s
 7.  AJ Allmendinger     Petty Ford                   1m17.086s  + 0.265s
 8.  Marcos Ambrose      Petty Ford                   1m17.100s  + 0.279s
 9.  Clint Bowyer        Childress Chevrolet          1m17.173s  + 0.352s
10.  Brian Vickers       Red Bull Toyota              1m17.265s  + 0.444s
11.  Kurt Busch          Penske Dodge                 1m17.352s  + 0.531s
12.  Jimmie Johnson      Hendrick Chevrolet           1m17.398s  + 0.577s
13.  Jeff Gordon         Hendrick Chevrolet           1m17.404s  + 0.583s
14.  Martin Truex Jr     Waltrip Toyota               1m17.411s  + 0.590s
15.  Brad Keselowski     Penske Dodge                 1m17.493s  + 0.672s
16.  Mark Martin         Hendrick Chevrolet           1m17.500s  + 0.679s
17.  Juan Pablo Montoya  Earnhardt Ganassi Chevrolet  1m17.523s  + 0.702s
18.  Dale Earnhardt Jr   Hendrick Chevrolet           1m17.556s  + 0.735s
19.  Kyle Busch          Gibbs Toyota                 1m17.576s  + 0.755s
20.  Tony Stewart        Stewart Haas Chevrolet       1m17.714s  + 0.893s
21.  Bobby Labonte       JTG Daugherty Toyota         1m17.737s  + 0.916s
22.  Greg Biffle         Roush Fenway Ford            1m17.788s  + 0.967s
23.  Carl Edwards        Roush Fenway Ford            1m17.805s  + 0.984s
24.  Regan Smith         Furniture Row Chevrolet      1m17.851s  + 1.030s
25.  Jeff Burton         Childress Chevrolet          1m17.881s  + 1.060s
26.  Kevin Harvick       Childress Chevrolet          1m18.024s  + 1.203s
27.  Casey Mears         Germain Toyota               1m18.070s  + 1.249s
28.  Robby Gordon        Gordon Dodge                 1m18.081s  + 1.260s
29.  David Gilliland     Front Row Ford               1m18.134s  + 1.313s
30.  Boris Said          Phoenix Chevrolet            1m18.207s  + 1.386s
31.  Joe Nemechek        NEMCO Toyota                 1m18.376s  + 1.555s
32.  David Reutimann     Waltrip Toyota               1m18.391s  + 1.570s
33.  Matt Kenseth        Roush Fenway Ford            1m18.454s  + 1.633s
34.  David Ragan         Roush Fenway Ford            1m18.505s  + 1.684s
35.  PJ Jones            Gordon Dodge                 1m18.533s  + 1.712s
36.  Dave Blaney         Baldwin Chevrolet            1m18.541s  + 1.720s
37.  Mike Skinner        Germain Toyota               1m18.915s  + 2.094s
38.  David Mayhew        HP Toyota                    1m19.107s  + 2.286s
39.  Terry Labonte       FAS Lane Ford                1m19.157s  + 2.336s
40.  Brian Simo          Whitney Chevrolet            1m19.295s  + 2.474s
41.  Andy Lally          TRG Chevrolet                1m19.333s  + 2.512s
42.  Chris Cook          Front Row Ford               1m19.349s  + 2.528s
43.  Andy Pilgrim        Whitney Chevrolet            1m19.702s  + 2.881s

Did not qualify:

     Tony Ave             Front Row Ford               1m19.851s + 3.030s