Kahne takes Cup Pocono pole

The Gillett Evernham driver claimed his 15th career pole with a lap of 52.873 seconds at an average speed of 170.219 mph, beating Jimmie Johnson's benchmark by 0.113 of second after the Hendrick driver had been at the top of the leaderboard since the beginning of the session.

"We needed a pole," said Kahne after scoring his first Cup pole of the season. "It's been good and we just have to keep it up.

"We had a good car in race practice but the track is going to be a lot different this weekend as far as Sunday goes because it'll be a little warmer. The engine's been good and you need an engine here, that's for sure."

"Our car was really well balanced. We made a small adjustment for qualifying and the track changed around 15, 16 degrees as far as track temperature.

"It's a good race car, we just have to keep it up. We'll keep working on it a little more tomorrow and see if we can get a car for 500 miles on Sunday when it all counts."

The session saw drivers running once again a unique line through the very important turn three after they found out during testing last week that driving over a new repaved patch three lanes up the track would give them more grip and a few tenths of a second.

Johnson was one of the drivers making gains from his performance in practice as others struggled to match it, improving around a tenth of a second to sit on the front row of the grid for the fourth time this season.

Mark Martin was third and will share the second row of the grid with Regan Smith, who was the fastest among the rookie drivers. Rounding up the top-five was Joe Nemechek, who was the fastest of the non-guaranteed drivers in the No. 78 Furniture Row Chevrolet.

Point's leader Kyle Busch qualified ninth before heading to Texas, where he will compete tonight in the Craftsman Truck Series race. He wasn't quite satisfied with the handling of his car neither in practice, nor in qualifying.

"We're not all that happy with the way things have gone here this weekend," Busch said. "We've got some work to do. Addington (Steve, crew chief) is going to try to brainstorm something here. I'll call him tonight and we'll figure something out tomorrow, hopefully, and get better."

Dario Franchitti made a good comeback on the Sprint Cup scene, qualifying 14th and best among the Ganassi drivers.

"I'm very happy with that," Franchitti said. "The Target Dodge tested well here but we came back this morning and track conditions were a lot different. The guys did a great job dialing it in for me. It was good. Great way to come back and I'm enjoying Pocono."

Jeff Gordon, winner a year ago in a rain-shortened race at Pocono, had a disappointing run and ended up 38th on the grid. Behind him in 42nd was David Gilliland, who was one of two drivers making contact with the wall, Bill Elliot being the other.

Terry Labonte, filling in for Kyle Petty, got the last starting spot in the grid thanks to his champion's provisional, which left JJ Yeley out of the field for Sunday's race for the second time this season.

Pos  Driver               Make        Speed     Times
 1.  Kasey Kahne          Dodge       170.219   52.873
 2.  Jimmie Johnson       Chevrolet   169.856   52.986 + 0.113
 3.  Mark Martin          Chevrolet   168.897   53.287 + 0.414
 4.  Regan Smith          Chevrolet   168.745   53.335 + 0.462
 5.  Joe Nemechek         Chevrolet   168.723   53.342 + 0.469
 6.  Carl Edwards         Ford        168.517   53.407 + 0.534
 7.  Dale Earnhardt Jr    Chevrolet   168.505   53.411 + 0.538
 8.  AJ Allmendinger      Toyota      168.479   53.419 + 0.546
 9.  Scott Riggs          Chevrolet   168.391   53.447 + 0.574
10.  Kyle Busch           Toyota      168.139   53.527 + 0.654
11.  Kurt Busch           Dodge       168.124   53.532 + 0.659
12.  Tony Stewart         Toyota      168.055   53.554 + 0.681
13.  Matt Kenseth         Ford        167.970   53.581 + 0.708
14.  Dario Franchitti     Dodge       167.939   53.591 + 0.718
15.  Brian Vickers        Toyota      167.904   53.602 + 0.729
16.  Denny Hamlin         Toyota      167.895   53.605 + 0.732
17.  Paul Menard          Chevrolet   167.838   53.623 + 0.750
18.  Elliott Sadler       Dodge       167.785   53.640 + 0.767
19.  Michael Waltrip      Toyota      167.738   53.655 + 0.782
20.  Jeff Burton          Chevrolet   167.735   53.656 + 0.783
21.  Juan Montoya         Dodge       167.467   53.742 + 0.869
22.  Jamie McMurray       Ford        167.436   53.752 + 0.879
23.  Travis Kvapil        Ford        167.367   53.774 + 0.901
24.  Patrick Carpentier   Dodge       167.345   53.781 + 0.908
25.  Martin Truex Jr      Chevrolet   167.327   53.787 + 0.914
26.  Jason Leffler        Chevrolet   167.258   53.809 + 0.936
27.  Ryan Newman          Dodge       167.255   53.810 + 0.937
28.  Kevin Harvick        Chevrolet   167.029   53.883 + 1.010
29.  Bill Elliott         Ford        166.759   53.970 + 1.097
30.  David Ragan          Ford        166.710   53.986 + 1.113
31.  Reed Sorenson        Dodge       166.688   53.993 + 1.120
32.  Dave Blaney          Toyota      166.648   54.006 + 1.133
33.  Greg Biffle          Ford        166.645   54.007 + 1.134
34.  Casey Mears          Chevrolet   166.605   54.020 + 1.147
35.  Clint Bowyer         Chevrolet   166.593   54.024 + 1.151
36.  David Reutimann      Toyota      166.589   54.025 + 1.152
37.  Bobby Labonte        Dodge       166.568   54.032 + 1.159
38.  Jeff Gordon          Chevrolet   166.454   54.069 + 1.196
39.  Michael McDowell     Toyota      166.276   54.127 + 1.254
40.  Robby Gordon         Dodge       165.871   54.259 + 1.386
41.  Sam Hornish Jr       Dodge       165.071   54.522 + 1.649
42.  David Gilliland      Ford        164.971   54.555 + 1.682
43.  Terry Labonte        Dodge       Champion's Provisional