Gordon grabs pole for final race at Talladega

In his final Talladega qualifying, Jeff Gordon was faster than the rest and earned the pole for Sunday’s race.

Camping World Truck Series drivers Timothy Peters (17), left, and…

Gordon, who also won the pole for the Talladega spring race, was easily the fastest of the 12 drivers who advanced to the second round of qualifying Saturday. His speed of 194.500 miles per hour was more than 8/10th of a second better than teammate Kasey Kahne. Kenseth, Johnson and Earnhardt rounded out the top-five qualifiers. He should be able to lead laps on Sunday and score fantasy points, but he will need to stay out of trouble to advance to the next round of the Chase. Like Earnhardt, he likely needs to win Sunday to move into the third round. Qualifying here isn’t really a huge deal, but definitely having the track position by the end of the race will be important. Truex said he was unaware the rule – enforced during plate races – had been implemented for qualifying, too.

“Apparently there was a memo sent out, and I never got it”, Truex said.

He’ll start last in the 43-car field, but wasn’t anxious.

Trevor Bayne held the top spot early on (192.777 mph) before the Hendrick cars took to the track. He revved his engine and unbeknownst to him, his vehicle was in reverse and backed hard into Justin Allgaier’s auto.

Bowyer said it was the “strangest” thing he’d ever been part of in racing, and felt bad for Allgaier and HScott Motorsports, the team Bowyer will drive for next season.

Bowyer apologized afterward, saying he didn’t know his auto was in reverse. I feel really, really bad.

Jeff Gordon will start what appears to be his final Sprint Cup Series race at NASCAR’s biggest track from the pole. This particular lucky vehicle is actually a lucky Chevy chassis, and this season it carried him to victory lane in a pre-season race and at Daytona in July.