Kenseth posts rare top-five qualifying run at Kansas

Jimmie Johnson was just plain awesome on Friday in qualifying for the LifeLock 400 at Kansas Speedway.

Johnson has led three of six races at Kansas, so he knows how to get around the place, and he knows how to send a message, too. He obliterated the pole time Kurt Busch had put up early in the session by nearly half a second to snag the pole.

LifeLock 400

Chase Qualifiers

Pos.	Driver	Speed
1.	Jimmie Johnson	175.063
2.	Matt Kenseth	174.283
4.	Jeff Gordon	173.695
5.	Denny Hamlin	173.684
8.	Kyle Busch	173.483
9.	Martin Truex Jr.	173.455
10.	Clint Bowyer	173.338
12.	Kurt Busch	172.916
17.	Kevin Harvick	172.458
19.	Tony Stewart	172.386
27.	Carl Edwards	171.467
34.	Jeff Burton	171.016

Going out 23rd of 46 cars, Johnson's lap of 30.846 seconds (175.063 mph) was .471 seconds and 2.147 mph faster than Busch's lap. He was the only driver in the session to top 175 mph.

He'll have plenty of company near the front from his fellow Chasers, as 10 of them will start in the top 20 on Sunday.

Behind Johnson came a surprising Matt Kenseth in second, Jeff Gordon fourth and Denny Hamlin fifth, with Kyle Busch (eighth) and Martin Truex Jr. (ninth) and Clint Bowyer (10th) rounding out the top 10.

Kurt Busch wound up 12th, Kevin Harvick was 17th and Tony Stewart will start 19th. Carl Edwards (27th) and Jeff Burton (34th) both were early qualifiers like Busch.

Johnson has been great on Fridays at Kansas, but less so, statistically, when the checkered flag falls. His average finish is 13.8, but if you throw out 2004, when he was 32nd, it's 7.4. He's also led 126 laps, third best all-time at Kansas.

Kenseth improved on his practice time by a quarter-second on his way to the third spot and will start inside the top five for just the fifth time this season.

Kenseth, who runs well at Chicagoland, sister track to Kansas, but hasn't been able to turn the trick at Kansas, came in at 30.984 seconds, 174.284 mph. A fifth-place run in 2005 is his best showing by far in six starts at Kansas, and he averages 20.0 for finishes, ninth among the top 12. Included among those finishes are showings of 36th, 32nd, and 23rd.

Gordon, a two-time winner at Kansas, is the career lap leader there and all 169 laps he's led came in the first two races, which he won. Since Kansas has widened out a little bit, he hasn't led a single lap in the last four times out.

Despite being the only multiple winner, Gordon's average finish is 11.5, marred by a 39th-place run last year. His qualifying lap was pretty hot, but still two-tenths of a second off Johnson's mark at 31.089 seconds, 173.695 mph.

Hamlin, shaking off the ill effects of a lost weekend in Dover, did much better on Friday than he usually does at Kansas, clicking off a lap at 31.091 seconds, 173.684 mph -- just .002 seconds off Gordon's time.

Hamlin has had terrible luck the past two weeks, and Kansas, at least on paper, doesn't seem to offer much sunshine in terms of finishes. He's been 18th (last year) and 32nd in his two races there, for an average of 25.0, last among the Chase drivers.

Kyle Busch has gotten better each time out at Kansas, finishing 37th, 21st and seventh the past three years, and he's led 61 more laps than his older brother in three fewer races (64-3). That said his average finish of 21.7 is 11th of 12, just below Kurt's.

He out-qualified big brother, coming in at 31.127 seconds, 173.483 mph.

Truex, like Bowyer, has just one previous start at Kansas, and he was 11th in last year's race. He seemed a quick learner, cozying up in Johnson's and Gordon's neighborhood at 31.132 seconds, 173.455 mph.

Homegrown star Bowyer, winner at New Hampshire to open the Chase, made his first start last year a good one, as he finished ninth after leading 43 laps. He spun out of the lead with about 100 laps to go, a victim of the pressures of racing at home, he says. That ninth-place run came on the heels of a sixth-place in qualifying.

When he slotted into the lineup, it was in sixth at 31.153 seconds, 173.338 mph. He wound up 10th.

Kurt Busch has been feast or famine at Kansas through six starts. A pair of top-10 runs (sixth and ninth) are sandwiched between finishes of 25th, 14th, 40th and 31st. His average is 20.8, 10th among the Chasers. He qualified early, the third car out, and logged a lap at 31.229 seconds, 172.916 miles per hour, which was good for the pole until Johnson knocked him off.

Harvick runs like Jack the Bear at Chicago, but like Kenseth, hasn't solved Kansas yet, despite the similarity in the layout. In his six starts, Harvick has a sixth-place run in 2003 as his best effort to date. Finishes of 35th, 24th and 15th the last three times out mean he's getting better ... slowly.

In qualifying, he ripped off a lap at 31.312 seconds, 172.458 mph, which was two-tenths quicker than his best lap in practice.

Stewart, winner here last year in a fuel-mileage gambit worthy of a riverboat gambler, is by far the most consistent of the Chasers at Kansas. Five top-10 finishes in six starts have given Smoke a finishing average of 6.5, nearly three places better than Bowyer's 9.0. He's never been worse than 14th there.

Stewart has three top-fives in six races, too, and despite the fact that he won the race last year, the six laps he led at the end of the race are the only ones he's paced at Kansas. He started 21st that day.

The hottest driver lately has been Edwards, and he's another driver who calls Kansas his home track (he's from Columbia, Mo.). In three starts, Edwards averages 10.3 per finish, and he has wound up in the top 10 in two of the three races he's run.

Edwards fell off a bit from practice, posting a lap at 31.493 seconds, 171.467 mph.

Burton has run in the top five at Kansas, finishing fifth last year, but on average he's at 16.8 in the rundown, which leaves him in the lower half among the top 12. Of course, he doesn't seem to qualify well at Kansas, posting a 23.5 starting average. He'll have his work cut out for him on Sunday from 34th after a lap at 31.576 seconds, 171.016 mph.