One week after earning his first career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race, David Reutimann has continued to make headlines by taking the top-spot in Friday’s qualifying session at the Dover International Speedway. The driver of the No. 00 Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota was fastest in the weekend’s first practice session and backed that performance up with a lap of 22.960 seconds at a speed of 156.794 mph, good enough for the Coors Light Pole Award.

“It seemed to be pretty good,” Reutimann said of his lap. “We unloaded and felt like the car was pretty good. We just made some small adjustments to it as the course of practice went on. I was actually a little concerned about it if it was going to be fast enough because the car got pretty tight compared to what had in our practice run, so we lost a little bit time from what we did in practice.”

Richard Petty Motorsports’ Kasey Kahne also backed up his practice run by putting the No. 9 Budweiser Dodge second on the charts after being the first car to make time. Using the new Dodge engine this weekend, Kahne posted a fast-lap of 22.997 seconds at 156.542 mph. 

For the first time all season long, the four Richard Petty Motorsports cars qualified in the top-10. Reed Sorenson put his No. 43 in fourth, A.J. Allmendinger will start seventh, while Elliott Sadler put his No. 19 in the tenth-spot. This weekend Kahne is using the new Dodge engine and he attributed his fast run to the new found power under the hood. After struggling for much of the season, Friday’s qualifying session may mark a turn around.

“I feel like my car’s really good,” Kahne explained. “We had a new car at the All-Star Race, same at the 600 and a new one here as well, and then we have the new engine in this weekend for here. I’ve felt like our cars and our set-ups have been getting better and better and then you add the new engine to it today. My car, to me it’s the best I’ve felt all season long was in practice this morning and then qualifying today. I have a lot to look forward to in the next little while here.”

While Kahne is optimistic about the direction of the organization as of late, the driver of the No. 9 Dodge admitted it was frustrating having the new engine this weekend, but not next. Speaking with HardcoreRaceFans.com, Kahne indicated they will use the new engine whenever the shop can have them ready.

Juan Pablo Montoya was third-fastest in the day’s qualifying session after running a lap of 23.074 seconds at a speed of 156.020 mph. Reed Sorenson and last September’s winner Greg Biffle rounded out the top-5.

Points leader Jeff Gordon had trouble on his lap, losing control of the No. 24 DuPont Chevrolet and smacking the wall on the exit of Turn 2. The hard hit was on his first lap and Gordon will start Sunday’s race from the 42nd-spot.

“The car, obviously it’s destroyed,” Gordon said after climbing from the car. “It is so hard to save one when it jumps loose on you like that in qualifying, you are so committed. I just hate it for these guys we were so good all day. Three and four we were incredibly good coming to the green and that’s my tell-tale sign of what kind of grip and what kind of balance we have. I got into one and the car felt good, got back in the gas and the backend just came around on me just a tiny bit and I tried to correct it and obviously you can see what happened, it just shot straight into the fence. Whew, that was a hard hit.”

Brad Keselowski, Max Papis, Derricke Cope and David Starr failed to qualify.

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