BRISTOL, Tenn. — Ryan Newman lived up to his new nickname, "Rocketman."
He was too fast for the rest of the field and got his third pole of the NASCAR season in qualifying Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway.
The top starting position for Sunday's Food City 500 was the 21st of his career. Newman, winless in the first five races this season, led the circuit last year with 11 poles and eight victories.
He ran a lap at 128.313 mph, just shy of his year-old track record of 128.709. His fast lap Friday took just 14.954 seconds on the high-banked, 533-mile oval.
"When you get around this place as fast as we did, it's certainly not that easy," Newman said. "You have to hit your marks and you have to do it at a really fast speed. It's easy to make a mistake."
Jeff Gordon, who has three poles and five wins here, made it very close with a lap of 128.288. The time difference between Newman's Dodge and Gordon's Chevrolet was just 0.003 seconds.
Greg Biffle, who earlier in the day won the pole for Saturday's Busch series race here, was third in Cup qualifying at 128.176, followed by Newman's teammate and nine-time Bristol winner Rusty Wallace at 128.074.
Rookie Kasey Kahne, who has two poles this season, was fifth at 127.860.
Jamie McMurray had to qualify in an unproven backup after his primary car failed inspection Friday morning because of an unapproved rear window and was confiscated by NASCAR.
That didn't appear to bother last year's top rookie. He went out last among the 45 drivers who made qualifying attempts and wound up sixth with a lap of 127.529.