With qualifying for the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup season’s first road course race of the year wrapped up, Brian Vickers must have sipped on some of his sponsor’s product because he grew wings and flew away from the competition.

Driving the No. 83 Red Bull Toyota, Vickers posted a lap of 76.48 seconds at a top speed of 93.678 miles per hour. Vickers’ performance in the qualifying session bested that of Kyle Busch by .21 seconds and .263 miles per hour. Vickers’ pole for the Toyota/Save Mart 350 brings his total to four pole spots earned in 2009.

Busch will start on the outside of the front row after assembling a qualifying effort of 76.69 seconds with a top speed of 93.415 miles per hour. With the victory of last year’s event at Infineon Raceway, taking the green in second is not a good sight to the other 42 drivers hoping to get their car into Victory Lane.

Taking the top seed in the opening practice session, Marcos Ambrose was able to keep his car up front after qualifying his No. 47 JTG/Daugherty Racing Toyota in the third place by bringing together a lap of 76.92 seconds at a high speed of 93.138 miles per hour. Always one to keep an eye on when NASCAR ventures to a road course, Ambrose looks to earn his first victory in the series this Sunday even though he’d rather win it at an oval.

Making his first road course start with his new team, Tony Stewart continued to impress as he placed his No. 14 Chevrolet in the fourth spot. Despite the lack of experience at Infineon with his new team, Stewart has seemed to collect a strong finish each week since the season began in Daytona. Currently leading in the Sprint Cup Series point standings by 47 points over Sonoma expert Jeff Gordon, don’t expect Stewart to relinquish the lead without a fight as he has proved that he is capable of winning at any moment.

Looking to give Dodge their second win at Infineon, Kasey Kahne drove his No. 9 Budweiser Dodge to the fifth starting spot in Sunday’s event. Admitting that he has not produced the results that he wishes to round-up at the track in years past, the Richard Petty Motorsports driver is set on turning that statistic around and to make his way up the point standings in the process.

Martin Truex Jr., Ryan Newman, Elliott Sadler, Boris Said and Matt Kenseth round out the top-10 for Sunday’s starting field.

Five-time Infineon winner Jeff Gordon will start the Toyota/Save Mart 350 in the 13th spot, and last week’s victor Mark Martin will follow Gordon in the 14th position.

Be sure to stay tuned to HardcoreRaceFans.com for the latest updates on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series from Infineon Raceway.

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