Mother Nature Hands Jimmie Johnson Front Row At Talladega

October 31, 2009 5:47 p.m. EST

Talladega, AL (AHN) - With showers in the area, a wet track and a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race looming later in the day, NASCAR pulled the plug on qualifying Saturday, giving points leader Jimmie Johnson the pole for Sunday's Amp Energy 500 Sprint Cup Series race at Talladega Superspeedway. The 43-car field was set via the NASCAR rulebook, putting Johnson on the front row alongside Hendrick Motorsports teammate Mark Martin. "It'll give us a chance to try to get five points, which is nice. The safest place really is leading. So it we're able to stay up front and ride around up there for a long time, to do it the whole race would be great,'' said Johnson. "But there is so much here that is out of control with not only the crashing aspect that we've all been talking about, but the draft and how impatient guys are going to want to be to lead a lap."

"With all 12 Chase drivers there, especially with the No. 24 (Gordon) behind me and the No. 5 (Martin) next to me and so forth and so on, everybody's going to be trying hard at the beginning to get a lap led. So we'll just be smart and take it as it comes. Obviously it's a great pit stall pick down at the end of pit road in that first stall. So hopefully we can use all that to our advantage," he added. The top 35 positions were set according to owners' points, giving the 12 drivers in the Chase the top 12 spots, with the exception of Kasey Kahne, who will drop to the rear of the field in his No. 9 Dodge because of an engine change. Martin trails Johnson by 118 points in the Chase standings and if there is a place in the final four races of the season that he could gain some major points on Johnson it would be Talladega, considering all of the uncertainty that comes with restrictor-place racing. "My car yesterday was just average with the field. It was not anything overly special and part of that's my fault. I've totaled two restrictor plate cars this year in three races. At least one of those was pretty special. So you can build as many as you want. You can build 10 and you get one or two special ones and you get several average ones and one or two that aren't so special,'' said Martin.

"We'll go out here tomorrow and race and hope that we can keep it in the front half, but my experience says that you're on a cycle throughout the field and the one thing I don't see me doing is riding in the back. I'm going to race tomorrow and I've told everybody this, I'm going to race tomorrow like there's no way that I can be in a wreck. And I feel lucky," Martin added.