Full Throttle

Busch qualifing

Paul Menard scored his first career NASCAR Busch Series pole on Friday taking the top spot in qualifying for the Mr. Goodcents 300 at Kansas Speedway. The rookie circled the 1.5-mile speedway at a speed of 176.062 mph to top the field. Kasey Kahne qualified second followed by Robby Gordon, Kyle Busch and series point leader Martin Truex, Jr.

Ron Hornaday, Blake Feese, who took over the Haas-CNC No. 00 from Jason leffler, David Stremme, defending race winner David Green and Kenny Wallace rounded out the Top 10.

NEXTEL Cup

Joe Nemechek took the top qualifying spot from series rookie Kasey Kahne, posting a lap of 180.156 mph to start up front for Sunday’s Banquet 400. This is the eighth time “Front Row Joe” will start from the first starting position in 325 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series races. His last pole was last week at Talladega Superspeedway. Kahne will start second, just ahead of his Dodge teammate Jeremy Mayfield will start third. Nemechek is the fourth different pole sitter in four NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series races at Kansas Speedway.

“You take them as you can get them,” he said. “For the crew guys, it’s Daytona and Talladega. There’s a lot of pride there. For here at Kansas, that car’s got to drive right. It ’s about downforce and bodies and everything. You’ve got to have the whole package.”

Nemechek, pulling double duty this weekend because he’s also running in Saturday’s Mr. Goodcents 300, has seen some recent successes in the past few weeks. He bested pole favorite and last year’s winner Ryan Newman, who qualified 12th.