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Truex Jr on Atlanta Cup pole

Martin Truex Jr claimed his second pole position of the season in qualifying for Sunday night's Sprint Cup race at Atlanta Motor Speedway

The Earnhardt Ganassi Racing driver set a lap of 30.106 seconds late in the session, beating the previous benchmark set by Kasey Kahne.

Truex's pole is the third for his squad this year and their first of the season at a non-restrictor plate track, following poles from him at Daytona and from team-mate Juan Pablo Montoya at Talladega.

"We had a very good car in practice," said Truex. "We made a very nice run in practice there on [scrubbed tyres] and we ran just about our best time. I felt good with the car and, you know, we never got to qualify here in the daytime and we used to always be fast in the day and then we had to qualify at night and we could never pick up the speed.

"It's been one heck of a tough season, but the team has not given up and they've worked really hard to make our cars better and help the #42 [team-mate Juan Pablo Montoya] make the Chase. I think we've got a really good race car, and this is one of my favourite race tracks."

Kahne, who is currently 11th in the drivers standing and hopes to make the series' playoff, matched his best qualifying effort of the season with his second front-row starting position of the year.

Meanwhile, Jimmie Johnson, who had been on provisional pole before Kahne, ended up third and his Hendrick team-mate Jeff Gordon will start alongside him.

The third row of the grid will be all-Busch with younger brother Kyle being fifth as the fastest Toyota and his brother Kurt, who won earlier this year at the track, ending up in sixth.

Former Cup champion Bobby Labonte was able to keep his streak of 569 consecutive starts alive after qualifying the #71 TRG Chevrolet 25th in his first race for the team. His replacement at Hall of Fame Racing, rookie Erik Darnell, will start his first Cup event from 42nd on the grid.

David Gilliland also succeeded at qualifying Wood Brother's #21 Ford in 17th place, filling in for former Cup champion Bill Elliot who recovers from cracked ribs he suffered in a motorcycle incident.

Regan Smith, Patrick Carpentier and Tony Raines failed to qualify for the first ever night race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Pos  Driver               Make        Speed     Time
 1.  Martin Truex Jr      Chevrolet   184.149   30.106
 2.  Kasey Kahne          Dodge       183.497   30.213 + 0.107
 3.  Jimmie Johnson       Chevrolet   183.358   30.236 + 0.130
 4.  Jeff Gordon          Chevrolet   182.995   30.296 + 0.190
 5.  Kyle Busch           Toyota      182.771   30.333 + 0.227
 6.  Kurt Busch           Dodge       182.729   30.340 + 0.234
 7.  Mark Martin          Chevrolet   182.609   30.360 + 0.254
 8.  Brian Vickers        Toyota      182.501   30.378 + 0.272
 9.  David Stremme        Dodge       182.416   30.392 + 0.286
10.  Denny Hamlin         Toyota      182.213   30.426 + 0.320
11.  Marcos Ambrose       Toyota      182.003   30.461 + 0.355
12.  Tony Stewart         Chevrolet   181.884   30.481 + 0.375
13.  Reed Sorenson        Dodge       181.848   30.487 + 0.381
14.  Carl Edwards         Ford        181.675   30.516 + 0.410
15.  Matt Kenseth         Ford        181.645   30.521 + 0.415
16.  David Ragan          Ford        181.639   30.522 + 0.416
17.  David Gilliland      Ford        181.449   30.554 + 0.448
18.  Kevin Harvick        Chevrolet   181.414   30.560 + 0.454
19.  Michael Waltrip      Toyota      181.414   30.560 + 0.454
20.  Clint Bowyer         Chevrolet   181.348   30.571 + 0.465
21.  Elliott Sadler       Dodge       181.325   30.575 + 0.469
22.  Juan Montoya         Chevrolet   181.301   30.579 + 0.473
23.  Ryan Newman          Chevrolet   181.247   30.588 + 0.482
24.  Jeff Burton          Chevrolet   181.236   30.590 + 0.484
25.  Bobby Labonte        Chevrolet   181.129   30.608 + 0.502
26.  Greg Biffle          Ford        181.046   30.622 + 0.516
27.  Jamie McMurray       Ford        180.651   30.689 + 0.583
28.  David Reutimann      Toyota      180.522   30.711 + 0.605
29.  Robby Gordon         Toyota      180.457   30.722 + 0.616
30.  Sam Hornish Jr       Dodge       180.416   30.729 + 0.623
31.  Dale Earnhardt Jr    Chevrolet   180.369   30.737 + 0.631
32.  Scott Speed          Toyota      180.152   30.774 + 0.668
33.  Casey Mears          Chevrolet   180.047   30.792 + 0.686
34.  Joey Logano          Toyota      179.988   30.802 + 0.696
35.  AJ Allmendinger      Dodge       179.971   30.805 + 0.699
36.  Joe Nemechek         Toyota      179.901   30.817 + 0.711
37.  Dave Blaney          Toyota      179.673   30.856 + 0.750
38.  Mike Bliss           Dodge       179.586   30.871 + 0.765
39.  Max Papis            Toyota      179.505   30.885 + 0.779
40.  John Andretti        Chevrolet   179.400   30.903 + 0.797
41.  Paul Menard          Ford        178.804   31.006 + 0.900
42.  Regan Smith          Chevrolet   178.574   31.046 + 0.940
43.  Terry Labonte        Toyota      177.681   31.202 + 1.096

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