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Qualifying was a matter of beating the 48 car (Johnson)," said Newman. "I had the advantage of knowing what he ran and I pushed my car to what I thought I needed to. It was a great lap for us; it was smooth. If I had to do it all over again I'd like to say I could do it better. Maybe not.

MORE PHOTOS & INFO ABOUT BANK OF AMERICA 500, RYAN NEWMAN

NAILS IT AGAIN

Newman claims Bank of America 500 pole

By Autosport.com

Ryan Newman claimed his fifth Nextel Cup pole position of the season at Lowe's Motor Speedway after setting the fastest lap in the late stages of qualifying for the Bank of America 500.

The Penske driver set a time of 28.512 seconds at an average speed of 189.394 mph, knocking pre-race favourite Jimmie Johnson off pole position by just sixty hundredths of a second. Newman's pole is his seventh in 14 Nextel Cup starts at the 'Beast of the Southeast'.

"Qualifying was a matter of beating the 48 car (Johnson)," said Newman. "I had the advantage of knowing what he ran and I pushed my car to what I thought I needed to. It was a great lap for us; it was smooth. If I had to do it all over again I'd like to say I could do it better. Maybe not."

Johnson backed up his favouritism for this weekend by getting a front-row starting position for Saturday night's race. He was one of the last drivers in the queue for qualifying and benefitted from that, but he had already showed his strength in practice by going quickest.

"The car was maybe a little on the free side," Johnson said. "But I really don't think I left anything out there. I'm real proud of the lap we put in. We had a great run. We've had a very smooth day in the Busch car and in the Cup car and I'm looking forward to a good weekend."

Bobby Labonte held provisional pole for a while but his time got beaten later. Before that, it had been Chase leader Jeff Gordon sitting on provisional pole, having been the seventh car to complete his qualifying run when conditions were far from their best.

"I wasn't expecting to put up a qualifying lap like that," said Gordon. "I'm excited. I think it was a good run that kept us in the top ten. It was a much bigger pickup (from practice) than we thought."

Kasey Kahne, winner of both of last year's races at Lowe's Motor Speedway had a good qualifying as well, taking fifth on the grid in his No. 9 car which is among the few Dodges running the old nose as the team has struggled to make the new one work.

Another former Lowe's winner, Jamie McMurray, will share the third row of the grid with him.

Chase contenders Matt Kenseth and Kurt Busch will share the fourth row of the grid, having run well in practice as well. Denny Hamlin and Kurt Busch qualified 11th and 13th while Carl Edwards was 17th. The rest of the title contenders will start from outside the top 20.

Michael Waltrip made the race again and will start from the tenth row of the grid beside his teammate David Reutimann. However, the third car of his team driven by Dale Jarrett failed to make the race, along with Joe Nemechek, Brian Vickers, Carl Long and Kirk Shelmerdine.

Also, for the fourth consecutive time, former IRL and Indy 500 Champion Sam Hornish Jr failed to be quick enough to put his No. 06 Penske in the starting line-up for his Nextel Cup debut. He was 47th fastest in qualifying among 49 drivers.

Posted October 12, 2007 , 3:40 pm EST

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