David Reutimann claimed his fourth NASCAR Sprint Cup career pole in qualifying for Saturday's race at Richmond.
The Michael Waltrip Racing driver knocked Earnhardt Ganassi's Jamie McMurray from provisional pole with a best time of 21.196 seconds at an average speed of 127.383 mph. Reutimann had been among the top 10 in the first practice, then was not one of the top runners in the final session of the day, but despite that his benchmark went unbeaten through to the end of qualifying.
"This is our first pole here and the first pole in a while for us," said Reutimann. "We went from getting a couple a year to it being a little while. It's been a dry spell for us so it feels good. Things haven't gone quite the way we wanted them to this year, but we're working hard to get things turned around and I think what you're seeing is a direct result of some of the stuff that we're doing different."
Reigning champion Jimmie Johnson - one of many running commemorative paint schemes to mark the 10th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks - showed great consistency in final practice and secured a spot on the second row of the grid beside his Hendrick Motorsports team-mate Mark Martin. Richard Childress Racing's Clint Bowyer, who still has an outside chance of entering title contention, was fifth and among the fastest in both practice sessions.
In a good session for RCR, Jeff Burton and Kevin Harvick were sixth and seventh ahead of Roush Fenway's Carl Edwards, Richard Petty's AJ Allmendinger (who is 13th in the points so on the cusp of a potential Chase spot) and Ganassi's Juan Pablo Montoya.
Joe Gibbs Racing's cars, which have won the past five races at Richmond, were 13th with Kyle Busch, 16th with Joey Logano while Denny Hamlin only 28th as he hopes to hang on to the final wildcard spot for the Chase.
Tony Stewart, 10th in the points entering the final race of the regular season, was 22nd fastest and needs only an 18th-place finish to secure his place in the play-off. Dale Earnhardt Jr, who needs a 20th place on Saturday night to return to Chase contention, will start from 27th.
"I don't remember what it's like to qualify in the top four here," said Stewart. "It's definitely a lot harder. In the spring race here we qualified in the back and got a lap down early and never could recover from it. But I think we've got a car that runs well... Hopefully, we'll get a lot of long, green-flag runs tomorrow night."
David Stremme was the fastest of the non-guaranteed drivers in 26th while Mike Skinner, Erik Darnell and TJ Bell failed to qualify.
