Johnson takes pole position at Bristol

The reigning champion ran a lap time of 15.540 seconds at an average speed of 123.475 mph, knocking Carl Edwards off the top of the charts to win his first-ever pole at the half-mile track.

The Hendrick Motorsports driver ran a low line on the banking, while Edwards ran a very high one that had seemed to be the way to go during practice. However, Johnson had run the low line for most of his practice laps.

Johnson's pole, despite being his first of the season, places him on the front row for the sixth time in the last nine races, a statistic unmatched by his rivals as the season gets closer to the championship play-off.

"We've been able to qualify well lately, we've just had a little trouble on the longer run on the fast tracks and we recognise that," said Johnson. "I think we have some good changes in store for our cars in those tracks but today the car has been awesome all day.

"Once [crew chief Chad] Knaus and I find out where we need to work on a given racetrack we seem to do pretty well at it.

"I was turning right the majority of the corner and really couldn't commit to the throttle, but I guess they say 'loose is fast!'"

Edwards continued to show improvement for Roush Fenway Racing with his front-row starting position at a track where he has won twice in the past four years. Joe Gibbs Racing's Joey Logano and Stewart Haas's Tony Stewart will start from the second row of the grid after being on provisional pole.

Meanwhile Michael Waltrip Racing's David Reutimann was fifth despite food poisoning sidelining him during the first session of the day, where Aric Almirola took over his car to complete the bulk of the team's running.

Five-time Bristol winner Jeff Gordon spun on his warm-up lap but got a second chance to complete his qualifying run and ended up 26th fastest.

"That was a lot more excitement than I was looking for," said Gordon about his incident. "Just took off, I could feel the track and tyres had good grip, got down into [Turn] 3 and the car just rotated way better than I thought it was going to and around it came.

"Very fortunate that I didn't damage the car any worse and didn't cross the start-finish line."

Phoenix Racing's Bobby Labonte was the highest qualifier of the non-guaranteed drivers in 30th place, right ahead of series returnee Jeff Green, who drove the #26 Ford for Latitude 43 Motorsports.

Casey Mears just made it into the field in the final spot, taking over from Max Papis in the #13 Germain Racing Toyota, which he is set to drive for the rest of the season.

Dave Blaney, Joe Nemechek, Kevin Lepage, JJ Yeley, Brian Keselowski and Mike Bliss all failed to qualify for Saturday's 500-lap event.

Pos  Driver              Car        Speed    Time     Gap
 1.  Jimmie Johnson      Chevrolet  123.475  15.540s
 2.  Carl Edwards        Ford       122.937  15.608s  + 0.068s
 3.  Joey Logano         Toyota     122.764  15.630s  + 0.090s
 4.  Tony Stewart        Chevrolet  122.584  15.653s  + 0.113s
 5.  David Reutimann     Toyota     122.497  15.664s  + 0.124s
 6.  Ryan Newman         Chevrolet  122.372  15.680s  + 0.140s
 7.  Jamie McMurray      Chevrolet  122.287  15.691s  + 0.151s
 8.  Juan Montoya        Chevrolet  122.248  15.696s  + 0.156s
 9.  Martin Truex Jr     Toyota     122.178  15.705s  + 0.165s
10.  AJ Allmendinger     Ford       122.154  15.708s  + 0.168s
11.  Kasey Kahne         Ford       122.131  15.711s  + 0.171s
12.  Paul Menard         Ford       122.131  15.711s  + 0.171s
13.  Mark Martin         Chevrolet  122.022  15.725s  + 0.185s
14.  Matt Kenseth        Ford       121.999  15.728s  + 0.188s
15.  Brad Keselowski     Dodge      121.999  15.728s  + 0.188s
16.  Jeff Burton         Chevrolet  121.968  15.732s  + 0.192s
17.  Denny Hamlin        Toyota     121.952  15.734s  + 0.194s
18.  Reed Sorenson       Toyota     121.890  15.742s  + 0.202s
19.  Kyle Busch          Toyota     121.867  15.745s  + 0.205s
20.  Kurt Busch          Dodge      121.813  15.752s  + 0.212s
21.  Greg Biffle         Ford       121.790  15.755s  + 0.215s
22.  Marcos Ambrose      Toyota     121.651  15.773s  + 0.233s
23.  Scott Speed         Toyota     121.512  15.791s  + 0.251s
24.  Clint Bowyer        Chevrolet  121.474  15.796s  + 0.256s
25.  Sam Hornish Jr      Dodge      121.466  15.797s  + 0.257s
26.  Jeff Gordon         Chevrolet  121.420  15.803s  + 0.263s
27.  Dale Earnhardt Jr   Chevrolet  121.382  15.808s  + 0.268s
28.  Kevin Harvick       Chevrolet  121.290  15.820s  + 0.280s
29.  Regan Smith         Chevrolet  121.274  15.822s  + 0.282s
30.  Bobby Labonte       Chevrolet  121.113  15.843s  + 0.303s
31.  Jeff Green          Ford       120.999  15.858s  + 0.318s
32.  Scott Riggs         Toyota     120.953  15.864s  + 0.324s
33.  Travis Kvapil       Ford       120.915  15.869s  + 0.329s
34.  David Gilliland     Ford       120.915  15.869s  + 0.329s
35.  Michael McDowell    Toyota     120.915  15.869s  + 0.329s
36.  Todd Bodine         Toyota     120.816  15.882s  + 0.342s
37.  Robby Gordon        Toyota     120.763  15.889s  + 0.349s
38.  David Ragan         Ford       120.710  15.896s  + 0.356s
39.  Tony Raines         Ford       119.678  16.033s  + 0.493s
40.  Kevin Conway        Toyota     119.589  16.045s  + 0.505s
41.  Elliott Sadler      Ford       119.395  16.071s  + 0.531s
42.  Landon Cassill      Chevrolet  119.388  16.072s  + 0.532s
43.  Casey Mears         Toyota     120.664  15.902s  + 0.362s