Johnson on Fontana pole; Gordon third

FONTANA, Calif. -- Aiming to build momentum heading into NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup championship, Jimmie Johnson got off to a good start Friday, winning the pole at Auto Club Speedway.

The two-time reigning Cup champion easily was the fastest driver on the 2-mile oval in qualifying for Sunday's Pepsi 500, turning a fast lap of 180.397 mph.

"I'm really very proud of that lap," said Johnson, the defending race winner.

For much of the session, it appeared the front row would be all Hendrick Motorsports, with Jeff Gordon sitting in the second spot with a lap of 179.565. But A.J. Allmendinger squeezed between the teammates with a lap of 179.659.

Kasey Kahne was fourth at 179.158, followed by Gillett Evernham Motorsports teammates Patrick Carpentier at 178.860 and Elliott Sadler at 178.492.

Rounding out the top 10 were Martin Truex Jr. at 178.434, Dave Blaney at 178.381, Las Vegas native Kurt Busch at 178.165 and rookie Aric Almirola at 178.134.

For Johnson, it was his first pole at the Southern California track but his series-leading fourth of the season and the 17th of his career.

Heading into the penultimate race of the "regular season," Johnson is fourth in the season points. But, based on his two victories this year, he currently would be the third seed in the Chase, trailing only Las Vegas native Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards.

• NHRA -- Cory McClenathan was the provisional No. 1 qualifier in Top Fuel in the U.S. Nationals at O'Reilly Raceway Park in Clermont, Ind.

McClenathan covered the 1,000-foot run in 3.852 seconds at 312.57 mph.

Other top pro qualifiers were: Robert Hight (Funny Car), Allen Johnson (Pro Stock) and Eddie Krawiec (Pro Stock Motorcycle).

Qualifying continues today and Sunday, with championship eliminations set for Monday.

• BULLRING -- Las Vegas Motor Speedway postponed tonight's NASCAR All-American Series event because of an electrical problem at the Bullring.

Power to the facility was knocked out early this week, possibly by lightning from a storm on Monday, a track official said. On Friday, it was determined severe damage had been done to a major transformer to force the event to be rescheduled for Sept. 9.

The outage did not affect the speedway's dragstrip, and this weekend's full slate of races will go on as scheduled.