Early preparation helps Truex Jr. land Dover pole

DOVER, Del. -- It might not have been his first career pole, but it was special just the same.

Martin Truex Jr. will start in the No. 1 position when the green flag drops on Sunday's Autism Speaks 400 at Dover International Speedway. It's the fifth career pole for Truex, and it came at the track where he scored his first, and to date only, win in the Cup Series.

Autism Speaks 400

Lineup

Pos.	Driver	Make
1.	Martin Truex Jr.	Toyota
2.	Kasey Kahne	Ford
3.	Mark Martin	Chevrolet
4.	Kyle Busch	Toyota
5.	Jimmie Johnson	Chevrolet

• Lineup | Photo Gallery

Qualifying Video

• No place like home

The sixth to post a lap in qualifying Friday, Truex grabbed the top spot with a lap of 157.315 mph, then had to wait as 39 others took to the high-banked 1-mile oval.

Kasey Kahne didn't upend Truex, but his lap of 157.274 mph did put Kahne on the front row.

Mark Martin, Kyle Busch and defending series and race champion Jimmie Johnson completed the top five.

For the 29-year-old Truex, Dover is a "home track" of sorts -- he grew up just a couple of hours away in Mayetta, N.J.

"To come here to Dover with my old number, 56, that has always been so special to me," Truex said, "[and] making my first Nationwide start here with that number on the car. All those little things make it special for me.

"So it's great to come here and get a pole."

Truex said it was a bit of a change in philosophy that helped the team find the necessary speed. In his first year at Michael Waltrip Racing, and teamed with crew chief Pat Tryson, Truex noted that making the trek to the tracks for the first time as a new group had slowed their progress. Getting the car prepared for race day was much more important, he said, than getting it set up for a fast lap in qualifying.

Prior to Friday's run, Truex had only one top-10 qualifying run this season.

"Races like last weekend [at Darlington] where you had two practices and you go into qualifying and you don't practice anymore, those kinds of races have hurt us probably more than some ... we don't have those notes and we really have to spend extra effort in race trim to make sure we're going to be good for Sunday," Truex said.

"That kind of took a little bit away from our qualifying efforts. Other weeks it's been the same way -- we weren't good enough off the truck to be happy with our race trim enough to switch over to qualifying and give us [time to] make two or three qualifying runs. This weekend, we said we're going to run 30 minutes of race trim and we're going to go to a qualifying [setup].

"Just ... being prepared early, having a good plan and stopping after a half an hour in race trim and going to qualifying [setup] -- it just worked for us."

Kahne earned his first front-row start of the season -- he's qualified no higher than 10th in his past three outings. Likewise, his finishes have tailed off of late as well, with the Ford driver finishing 20th or worse in his past three starts.

Series points leader Kevin Harvick will start 30th and two drivers -- Todd Bodine and Max Papis -- failed to make the field.