After pacing the weekend's opening practice session, veteran Mark Martin put the pedal to the floor and topped the charts during Friday night's qualifying session for the Kobalt Tools 500.  Running a lap of 29.640 seconds at a speed of 187.045 mph, Martin knocked Greg Biffle from the top-spot and watched as the rest of the field tried to better his time.

"I feel like a rookie," Martin said after his pole-winning qualifying run. "Not only did the lap scare me and I felt like I ran out of talent off of Turn 4, there was no possible way I could keep my foot on the floor and not hit the wall with the back end first up off of Turn 4. It was really fun, I live to scare myself like that, that's part of it. I continued to be nervous all the way through the rest of qualifying much like I used to back in the early nineties when we were lucky enough to get poles back then."

Martin's fast-lap earned him his second-career pole at the Atlanta Motor Speedway and his 42nd overall. Despite sitting on the outside of the front row six times in 2008, this is the first pole for the veteran driver since Richmond in May 2001 - 281 races ago.

Roush Fenway Racing's Jamie McMurray continued his strong start to the 2009 season as he came within 0.117 seconds of Martin's pole-winning speed. After a lap of 29.757 seconds at a speed of 186.309 mph, McMurray credited being able to arc the car into the corner with his solid lap.

"It's a good way to start your weekend," McMurray explained. "Atlanta seems to be one of those track you can pass at, but Sunday's race is going to interesting because the tire we have here is a huge challenge to drive. The cars drive really odd and I think track position will probably be more important here than it has in the past."

McMurray's lap looked second only to Martin's, that is until the blue deuce driven by Kurt Busch took to the track. Laying down a lap of 29.748 seconds at a speed of 186.365 mph, Busch put his No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge on the outside of the front row for the second week in a row. Missing the pole by only 0.108 seconds, Busch was proud to settle for second.

"I really felt like coming to the green we were going to have our hands full and it was going to be a busy thirty seconds," Buschsaid of his qualifying run. "As the lap progressed the car began sticking well, but I felt I was too tentative to throw it in the corner deep and stand on the gas hard. I'm surprised I'm sitting here right now.

"When you hit a lap as good as Mark did tonight, I think everyone saw that lap get posted and went, 'Man, I can't touch even touch that, I'm not even going to come close,'" Busch added. "Everybody is holding their breath for the thirty seconds they're out there and the fact of it is if you hit it just right you don't know if you're tight or you're loose, you don't know when you're sliding and drifting up half a lane, you just hope the lap ends and it's over with and that's the view I think everyone had tonight."

Joe Nemechek was the best of the go-or-go-home cars by putting his unsponsored No. 87 Toyota in the eighth-spot. Todd Bodine, Scott Riggs, Jeremy Mayfield and Geoff Bodine failed to make the show.

The Cup cars have two practices scheduled for Saturday with Sunday's Kobalt Tools 500 scheduled for a 2pm E.T. start. Be sure to check back to HardcoreRaceFans.com for all of the latest news and results LIVE from the Atlanta Motor Speedway.