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NASCAR At Martinsville: Jamie McMurray Wins Pole, Ryan Newman Second

Jamie McMurray recorded his first-career pole at the Martinsville Speedway and the second-straight for Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing, snagging the top spot for tomorrow's Goody's Fast Relief 500. Ryan Newman will start outside the front row. The Toyota trio of Team Red Bull driver Kasey Kahne and Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin rounded out the top-five.

The rest of the top ten features A.J. Allmendinger, driving the famous No. 43 at the track where it most-recently went to victory lane - with John Andretti in 1999 - followed by Bobby Labonte, David Reutimann, Kevin Harvick, and Regan Smith. Smith has the best average qualifying spot of any Sprint Cup driver in 2011.

McMurray, who's previous best qualifying effort at Martinsville was a trio of second-place starts, toured the .526-mile oval in 19.62 seconds, about four hundredths of a second quicker than Newman.

Sprint Cup point leader Carl Edwards was only 23rd fastest. The driver of the No. 99 Ford has never led a lap at Martinsville, the only oval on the Sprint Cup circuit he has yet to do so.

The entire Sprint Cup starting grid can be found at NASCAR.com.

Photographs by coka_koehler used in background montage under Creative Commons. Thank you.