Martinsville, VA (Best E Casino) - He was fastest in practice, albeit a short one, and Jeff Gordon kept the speed up in qualifying winning the pole for Sunday's Subway 500 at the Martinsville Speedway, the sixth race of the 10- race "Chase for the Nextel Cup." The No.24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet circled the 0.526-mile flat short track in 19.938 seconds ( 94.974 m.p.h.).

The pole victory was Gordon's seventh of the season, sixth at Martinsville and 63rd of his "Cup" career. However, the time was well short of the track record of 19.306, set in October 2005 by Tony Stewart.

"I just overdrove the first lap, the car is awesome in the middle of and off the corner," said Gordon. "On the second lap I just had to calm way down."

Starting alongside Gordon will be Martin Truex Jr. who posted a second-best time of 19.988 seconds.

Kevin Harvick (19.999) and Jimmie Johnson (20.013) will make up row two putting four "Chase" drivers at the front of the field.

The remainder of the "Chase" field will start in the following order: Kyle Busch (sixth), Kurt Busch (11th), Jeff Burton (18th), Carl Edwards (20th), Clint Bowyer (21st), Matt Kenseth (24th), Denny Hamlin (30th) and Stewart (34th).

"That's the best lap I could make here at Martinsville," said Edwards.

Gordon brings a 68-point lead over Johnson and 78-point lead over Bowyer to the Martinsville Speedway short track where Gordon is a favorite to win the race.

Gordon has five consecutive top-five finishes at Martinsville and seven career wins there. For his career he has earned 23 top-10s in 29 starts with a 7.3 average finish.

But Johnson isn't likely to go away this week either. The No.48 Lowe's Chevrolet driver has won the last two events there, owns 10 top-10s in 11 starts and an even better 6.6 average finish.

In April's spring race, Johnson and Gordon put on quite a show which saw the defending series champion edge his teammate and car's co-owner by 0.065 seconds. Bowyer finished 11th in that race, but in three starts on the flat half-mile oval he has yet to score a top-10 and his average finish of 18.7 might knock him out of the championship.

The race is scheduled to drop the green flag on Sunday at 1:30 p.m. (et).