Fort Worth, TX (Best E Casino) - The sun began to set, the track got cooler and Martin Truex Jr. took advantage of the situation winning the pole for Sunday's Dickies 500 Nextel Cup race at the Texas Motor Speedway, the eighth of 10 races that make up the Chase for the Nextel Cup. The No.1 DEI Chevrolet grabbed the top spot with a best lap of 27.964 seconds (193.105 m.p.h.).

The pole victory was the first of Truex Jr.'s Cup career.

"It's awesome, we've been trying to do this for a while," said Truex Jr. "We've been second a bunch this year. That's the way to start off our weekend and one of these days we're going to finish one off too."

Starting alongside Truex Jr. will be points leader Jeff Gordon who posted a time of 28.063 seconds. Gordon was fastest in the final practice and had already won seven pole awards this season so Truex Jr. wasn't assured of his win until Gordon came up just short in one of the final two qualifying attempts of the afternoon.

Juan Pablo Montoya (28.064) and Kevin Harvick (28.090) will make up row two.

"Everybody did an amazing job...and it puts us in a good position for the race," said Montoya.

The remainder of the "Chase" field will start in the following order: Kurt Busch (sixth), Denny Hamlin (seventh), Jimmie Johnson (eighth), Tony Stewart (15th), Kyle Busch (17th), Matt Kenseth (18th), Carl Edwards (21st), Jeff Burton (27th), Clint Bowyer (29th),

Johnson's second consecutive win, and series-leading eighth of the season, cut 44 points off his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Gordon's lead to close within nine points of the four-time series champion.

It's not a fluke that Gordon and Johnson are one-two. The statistics bare out that the two friends should be there.

Gordon has six wins, 20 top-fives and 27 top-10s in 33 events. He has led a series-leading 1,280 laps out of 9,669, (13.24%). He leads in pole wins (7). He has finished worse than 12th just four times all season.

Johnson has eight wins among his 18 top-fives and 21 top-10s. He is second to Gordon in laps led with 1,225 (12.67%).

By contrast Bowyer, who is in third place overall -111 points back, has just one win, five top-fives and 17 top-10s.

Surprisingly, despite 81 career wins (sixth all-time), Gordon has never won a pole or a race at the Texas Motor Speedway. He did finish second in April 2002 and has six top-10s in 13 career starts. Johnson has similar statistics at TMS - no poles, no wins, but six top-10s in eight career starts.

The race is scheduled to begin on Sunday at 3:30 p.m. (et).