Paul Menard captures first Busch Series pole

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) -- Paul Menard won his first NASCAR Busch Series pole, edging Kasey Kahne by two-thirds of a second Friday at Kansas Speedway.
Menard took the pole for the Mr. Goodcents 300 with a top lap of 176.062 mph in a Chevrolet. Kahne -- going for his third straight pole -- drove his Dodge around the 1 1/2-mile tri-oval at 175.684.
"We just screwed up," said Kahne, who also qualified second for Sunday's Nextel Cup race. "We did something that made the car go slower."
Improvement
Menard, whose best previous start was eighth in April at Talladega, won the pole in his eighth start in a car co-owned by Chance 2 Motorsports and Dale Earnhardt Inc.
"We definitely had all the tools there," Menard said. "It was just kind of up to [crew chief] Tony Gibson and myself to try to put all the pieces of the puzzle together."
Chevrolets took eight of the top 10 spots, with Kahne and David Stremme -- starting ninth in a Dodge -- the only exceptions.
Robby Gordon and Kyle Busch will start on the second row today, followed in the top 10 by Martin Truex Jr., Ron Hornaday, Blake Feese, Mike Bliss, Stremme and David Green.
Gordon missed a front-row start by .0002 of a second. He is driving the same car he took to his only Busch victory this season, last month in Richmond.
"Every time we run this car, we qualify in the top 10 and have a chance to win the race," Gordon said. "It's pretty exciting."
Mike McLaughlin, starting 13th, had the highest-qualifying Ford.
Feese was a late replacement for Jason Leffler, who was third in the standings but was fired earlier this week by Haas CNC Racing. Leffler lost his court challenge Friday morning, when a judge overturned a restraining order that would have kept anyone but him from driving the No. 00 Chevrolet.
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