Turning a harrowing lap on tires that provided little grip, the 50-year-old Martin took the top spot Friday night at Atlanta Motor Speedway, proving he's still fully capable of showing those young whippersnappers a thing or two.
"When I saw that lap posted, I said, 'I can't touch that. I'm not even going to come close,"' said Kurt Busch, who settled for the second spot behind the guy who's nearly two decades his senior. "Everyone was holding their breath for 30 seconds out there."
Martin turned a lap of 187.045 mph for Sunday's Kobalt Tools 500, earning his 42nd career pole but first since May 5, 2001, at Richmond.
Only Harry Gant, who was 54 when he claimed the pole at Bristol in August 1994, was older than Martin.
"I feel like a rookie," Martin said. "I really, really do."
With everyone renewing their complaints about a lack of tire grip on the high-banked, 1.54-mile oval, Martin managed to hold things together for a nearly perfect run that took less than 30 seconds.
"I'm still shaking," he said. "I thought I ran out of talent in turn four. There was no possible way to hold my foot on the floor and not hit the wall, back end first, in turn four. But that was really fun. I live to scare myself like that."
After two seasons as a part-time driver, Martin returned to a full-season ride with the powerful Hendrick Motorsports team this season, looking to claim the first Cup championship of a long, brilliant career. Blown engines the past two weeks put a damper on his new gig, so the long-awaited pole couldn't have come at a better time.
"This is cool," Martin said. "It doesn't have any real implications for what's going to happen Sunday, but we won a competition tonight."
Busch will start from the outside of the front row after a lap of 186.365. He, too, found it difficult to keep the car under control on a track that felt like ice.
"We're scratching out heads a little bit on how hard the cars are to drive, but we seem to have some speed," Busch said.
Ryan Newman missed out in a bid for his eighth career pole at the Atlanta oval, remaining tied with Buddy Baker for the most in track history. Newman qualified 12th in his Stewart Haas Racing Chevrolet, just behind his team owner, Tony Stewart.
Todd Bodine, Scott Riggs, Jeremy Mayfield and Geoff Bodine failed to make the 43-car field.
Stewart had another strong qualifying run in what was supposed to be a transition year to his new role as a car owner-slash-driver. He's even surprised himself with his speed right out of the box with the team that bears his name.
"From a physical parts and pieces standpoint, we knew we had what we needed," said Stewart, who's eighth in the standings after three races. "It was just a matter of how long it was going to take for the package to gel. I think we're all pleasantly surprised at how quick that's come."
He finished eighth at the season-opening Daytona 500 and held down the same spot at California before dropping to 26th in Las Vegas last weekend. Even then, he ran in the top five much off the day.
He's not the only surprise, either.
After struggling through most of its history and enduring an uncertain offseason, Michael Waltrip Racing has both of its cars inside the top 12 -- the cutoff point that everyone looks at because it determines which drivers advance to the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship.
David Reutimann is fifth and Waltrip, an owner-driver like Stewart, is holding down the 12th spot. Former Cup champion Bobby Labonte, who moved to a new, merged team this season, is ninth in the points and getting ready to race at a track where he's had a lot of success.
"I was always confident I could do the job," said Reutimann, who finished 22nd last year and dealt with sponsorship questions for the second straight winter. "It was just a matter of getting in the right situation."
Stewart appeared to be in the right situation at Joe Gibbs Racing, but he couldn't pass up the chance to take control of his own team. He was given 50 percent of Haas CNC Racing, a lowly team in the NASCAR pecking order, and transformed it into a much-improved operation.
"We could fall on our face this week," he said. "But to go to a superspeedway (Daytona), a two-mile track (California) and a mile-and-a-half track (Las Vegas), and have good results and good performance each of those weeks, that's something to be proud of."
Stewart is even more encouraged by these first three races because he almost always got off to a slow start during his long, successful tenure at Gibbs, usually picking up steam as the temperature rose. Also, he was never an especially strong qualifier, but he has started no lower than 11th.
No wonder he had a big smile on his face when he climbed from the car after practice. He even chatted amiably with an official from Goodyear, the company that drew Stewart's wrath at last fall's Atlanta race for supposedly providing an inferior tire.
"There's a sense of pride every day when you come in the garage and see the 39 car and the 14 car sitting there," he said. "It makes you feel good."
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