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Reutimann on Texas Cup pole

David Reutimann claimed his second career Sprint Cup series pole in qualifying for the Samsung 500 at Texas Motor Speedway

The Michael Waltrip Racing driver, who currently ranks eleventh in the driver standing, had been second quickest earlier in practice and he backed that up in qualifying by setting a lap of 28.344 seconds, at an average speed of 190.517 miles per hour, knocking Jeff Gordon from the top spot by nearly half a tenth of a second.

"We now have good cars every week and that makes my job a lot easier," said Reutimann after claiming his first pole position since last year's season finale at Homestead.

"We need to make our car pretty versatile to run the top and the bottom. Hopefully we can make some good adjustments for tomorrow's final practice and be ready for Sunday."

Points-leader Jeff Gordon will start from the front row for the second consecutive weekend, having inherited pole position due to rain at Martinsville last weekend. The Hendrick driver is still after his first win of the season, and also his first at Texas Motor Speedway, one of only two tracks were he has yet to win a Cup race.

Roush Fenway's Matt Kenseth will start Sunday's race from third on the grid, which is his best qualifying effort of the season thus far. Also taking his best starting spot of the year will be his team-mate David Ragan, who shares the second row of the grid with this year's Daytona 500 winner.

Paul Menard emerged as a surprise fifth fastest, making it three Ford's in the top five, while Kasey Kahne, a former winner at Texas, was sixth fastest as the best among the Dodge teams in qualifying, actually the only car from the manufacturer in the top-ten of the grid.

Tony Stewart was sixth ahead of former team-mate Kyle Busch, who claimed pole position for Saturday's Nationwide Series event. Reigning champion Jimmie Johnson almost mirrored his time from practice to take ninth place, ahead of rookie Joey Logano who got his best qualifying result of his debut campaign thus far.

Mark Martin, who had been fastest in practice, could only manage a twenty-third place in qualifying, while Carl Edwards, winner at the mile-and-a-half track twice last year, was thirteenth fastest.

"We were a little slower than what we thought we'd be in qualifying," Edwards said. "It was just not quite as fast as we thought it was going to be. But, that's all right. It's a 500-mile race, we run really well here, and in race trim we were real fast, so it should be real good."

Scott Speed failed to make the field for the first time this year, as his car remains outside the top-35 in the car owner standings and his fastest lap in qualifying only ranked forty-fourth fastest among 48 drivers. Joe Nemechek also failed to make the field, as well as Jeremy Mayfield, Todd Bodine and Scott Riggs.

Pos  Driver              Make        Speed     Time
 1.  David Reutimann     Toyota      190.516   28.344
 2.  Jeff Gordon         Chevrolet   190.194   28.392 + 0.048
 3.  Matt Kenseth        Ford        189.954   28.428 + 0.084
 4.  David Ragan         Ford        189.934   28.431 + 0.087
 5.  Paul Menard         Ford        189.907   28.435 + 0.091
 6.  Kasey Kahne         Dodge       189.900   28.436 + 0.092
 7.  Tony Stewart        Chevrolet   189.807   28.450 + 0.106
 8.  Kyle Busch          Toyota      189.427   28.507 + 0.163
 9.  Jimmie Johnson      Chevrolet   189.421   28.508 + 0.164
10.  Joey Logano         Toyota      189.268   28.531 + 0.187
11.  Marcos Ambrose      Toyota      189.221   28.538 + 0.194
12.  Sam Hornish Jr      Dodge       189.215   28.539 + 0.195
13.  Carl Edwards        Ford        189.175   28.545 + 0.201
14.  Greg Biffle         Ford        189.155   28.548 + 0.204
15.  Jeff Burton         Chevrolet   189.122   28.553 + 0.209
16.  Juan Montoya        Chevrolet   188.857   28.593 + 0.249
17.  Kevin Harvick       Chevrolet   188.831   28.597 + 0.253
18.  Brian Vickers       Toyota      188.778   28.605 + 0.261
19.  Clint Bowyer        Chevrolet   188.772   28.606 + 0.262
20.  Dale Earnhardt Jr   Chevrolet   188.745   28.610 + 0.266
21.  Ryan Newman         Chevrolet   188.626   28.628 + 0.284
22.  Denny Hamlin        Toyota      188.541   28.641 + 0.297
23.  Mark Martin         Chevrolet   188.515   28.645 + 0.301
24.  Bobby Labonte       Ford        188.469   28.652 + 0.308
25.  AJ Allmendinger     Dodge       188.298   28.678 + 0.334
26.  John Andretti       Chevrolet   188.291   28.679 + 0.335
27.  Mike Bliss          Dodge       188.009   28.722 + 0.378
28.  Kurt Busch          Dodge       187.950   28.731 + 0.387
29.  Robby Gordon        Toyota      187.898   28.739 + 0.395
30.  David Gilliland     Chevrolet   187.833   28.749 + 0.405
31.  Martin Truex Jr     Chevrolet   187.682   28.772 + 0.428
32.  David Stremme       Dodge       187.493   28.801 + 0.457
33.  Regan Smith         Chevrolet   187.487   28.802 + 0.458
34.  Michael Waltrip     Toyota      187.305   28.830 + 0.486
35.  Casey Mears         Chevrolet   187.279   28.834 + 0.490
36.  Jamie McMurray      Ford        187.240   28.840 + 0.496
37.  Bill Elliott        Ford        187.039   28.871 + 0.527
38.  Reed Sorenson       Dodge       186.948   28.885 + 0.541
39.  Max Papis           Toyota      186.496   28.955 + 0.611
40.  Brad Keselowski     Chevrolet   186.355   28.977 + 0.633
41.  Aric Almirola       Chevrolet   186.156   29.008 + 0.664
42.  Elliott Sadler      Dodge       182.395   29.606 + 1.262
43.  Dave Blaney         Toyota      186.111   29.015 + 0.671

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