Reutimann takes Dover Cup pole

The 39-year-old, fresh from his maiden NASCAR Sprint Cup win last Monday, first dominated the morning practice session and then went on to beat Kasey Kahne's benchmark in qualifying with his first flying lap, setting a time of 22.960 seconds at an average speed of 156.793 mph.

"A lot of this has got to go to the team," Reutimann said after claiming the third pole of his Cup career. "They're giving us great cars and my crew chief Rodney Childers obviously made a great decision last week and here we unloaded with a great car this weekend.

"We've got great horsepower from Toyota TRD also and all that's added to things showing on the racetrack."

Kasey Kahne had his best qualifying effort of the season thus far in his first weekend running the new R6P8 Dodge engine. The Richard Petty Motorsports driver will start on the front row for the first time since he was on pole position at Infineon Raceway last year.

Juan Pablo Montoya continued to show improvements at Earnhardt Ganassi Racing by taking third on the grid for Sunday's race, running a unique racing line on the track, higher on the banking than most of his rivals.

The Colombian, who was the fastest Chevrolet driver, will share the second row of the grid with his former Ganassi team-mate Reed Sorenson.

"We unloaded good and in practice we were not as fast as we wanted to be," Montoya said. "But it's nice. We're using a very different line to everybody else's from what I've seen, but it seems to work for me, so I'm pretty happy.

"The nice thing about this is, from my background with cars with a lot of grip, this is probably the most grip we have with these cars of anywhere we go, so it's a lot of fun to drive them around here."

Greg Biffle, the most recent winner at the track, will start Sunday's race from exactly the same spot as he did last autumn at one of Roush Fenway's strongest venues. His team-mates Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth, both previous winners at Dover, will see the green flag wave from the seventh row of the grid.

Kyle Busch was the fastest Toyota in sixth, while backing up a strong qualifying session for Richard Petty Motorsports were AJ Allmendinger in seventh, his best qualifying of the season, and Elliot Sadler rounding out the top ten.

Jeff Gordon, who had been third fastest in the morning practice behind Reutimann and Kahne, crashed on his first qualifying lap when his car snapped at the exit of Turn 2, then made hard contact against the concrete wall.

"That hurt, the car's obviously destroyed," Gordon said. "I just hate it for the guys. We were so good all day and the car got through [turns] three and four incredibly good coming to the green and that's my telltale sign of what kind of grip and what kind of balance you have.

"I got into [turn] one and the car felt good, got back in the gas and the car just came around on me just a tiny bit. I tried to correct it and obviously you can see what happened."

Gordon's team-mate Jimmie Johnson was eighth on the grid while Dale Earnhardt Jr was 22nd, not far from his qualifying average this year on his first day with new crew chief Brian Whitesell, before Lance McGrew takes over the role next weekend at Pocono.

Roookie Scott Speed was the fastest non-guaranteed driver in 23rd, while Talladega race-winner Brad Keselowski failed to qualify his Hendrick Motorsports Chevy. Italian Max Papis, Derrike Cope and David Starr didn't make the field either.

Jeremy Mayfield's team was initially on the entry list for the event, but it withdrew and its haulers did not even show up at the track.

Pos  Driver             Car        Speed    Time
 1.  David Reutimann    Toyota     156.794  22.960s
 2.  Kasey Kahne        Dodge      156.542  22.997s  + 0.037s
 3.  Juan Montoya       Chevrolet  156.020  23.074s  + 0.114s
 4.  Reed Sorenson      Dodge      155.952  23.084s  + 0.124s
 5.  Greg Biffle        Ford       155.932  23.087s  + 0.127s
 6.  Kyle Busch         Toyota     155.885  23.094s  + 0.134s
 7.  AJ Allmendinger    Dodge      155.689  23.123s  + 0.163s
 8.  Jimmie Johnson     Chevrolet  155.662  23.127s  + 0.167s
 9.  Brian Vickers      Toyota     155.595  23.137s  + 0.177s
10.  Elliott Sadler     Dodge      155.514  23.149s  + 0.189s
11.  Ryan Newman        Chevrolet  155.447  23.159s  + 0.199s
12.  Sam Hornish Jr     Dodge      155.440  23.160s  + 0.200s
13.  Carl Edwards       Ford       155.420  23.163s  + 0.203s
14.  Matt Kenseth       Ford       155.313  23.179s  + 0.219s
15.  Martin Truex Jr    Chevrolet  155.313  23.179s  + 0.219s
16.  Denny Hamlin       Toyota     155.152  23.203s  + 0.243s
17.  Casey Mears        Chevrolet  155.085  23.213s  + 0.253s
18.  Jamie McMurray     Ford       155.066  23.216s  + 0.256s
19.  Kurt Busch         Dodge      155.032  23.221s  + 0.261s
20.  Marcos Ambrose     Toyota     154.919  23.238s  + 0.278s
21.  Joey Logano        Toyota     154.812  23.254s  + 0.294s
22.  Dale Earnhardt Jr  Chevrolet  154.799  23.256s  + 0.296s
23.  Scott Speed        Toyota     154.706  23.270s  + 0.310s
24.  David Gilliland    Chevrolet  154.593  23.287s  + 0.327s
25.  Clint Bowyer       Chevrolet  154.573  23.290s  + 0.330s
26.  David Ragan        Ford       154.566  23.291s  + 0.331s
27.  Bobby Labonte      Ford       154.434  23.311s  + 0.351s
28.  Mark Martin        Chevrolet  154.328  23.327s  + 0.367s
29.  Michael Waltrip    Toyota     154.242  23.340s  + 0.380s
30.  David Stremme      Dodge      153.932  23.387s  + 0.427s
31.  Tony Stewart       Chevrolet  153.675  23.426s  + 0.466s
32.  Jeff Burton        Chevrolet  153.577  23.441s  + 0.481s
33.  Regan Smith        Chevrolet  153.446  23.461s  + 0.501s
34.  Mike Skinner       Toyota     153.368  23.473s  + 0.513s
35.  Kevin Harvick      Chevrolet  153.263  23.489s  + 0.529s
36.  Paul Menard        Ford       153.133  23.509s  + 0.549s
37.  Mike Bliss         Dodge      153.120  23.511s  + 0.551s
38.  Joe Nemechek       Toyota     152.853  23.552s  + 0.592s
39.  Dave Blaney        Toyota     152.840  23.554s  + 0.594s
40.  Robby Gordon       Toyota     151.681  23.734s  + 0.774s
41.  John Andretti      Chevrolet  151.471  23.767s  + 0.807s
42.  Jeff Gordon        Chevrolet 
43.  Tony Raines        Chevrolet  152.491  23.608s  + 0.648s

Did not qualify:

     Brad Keselowski    Chevrolet  152.265  23.643s  + 0.683s
     Max Papis          Toyota     151.816  23.713s  + 0.753s
     Derrike Cope       Dodge      148.014  24.322s  + 1.362s
     David Starr        Dodge