Vickers grabs Loudon pole

Brian Vickers grabbed the Nextel Cup series pole for the New England 300 with a lap of 130.327 mph. It is Vickers' third career pole and first of the 2005 season.

"The guys did a good job yesterday in practice," Vickers said. "We have a good car.This GMAC Chevy team has given me a great car in race trim. We really love coming here to New Hampshire. The fans are great and the race track is a lot of fun so hopefully we will have a good race here."

It's a great effort by the No. 25 Hendrick team. He qualified 23rd and 24th in the two events here last year.

"I knew I had a good car," said Vickers. "I just didn't know it was that good."

Kasey Kahne went out first but was able to earn the second starting spot.

"It was a good lap," said Kahne. "It felt pretty good. I slid around a little bit more than I wanted to, but that wasn't a bad lap for going out first."

Elliott Sadler third; Sadler also qualified third for Saturday's Busch race.

"I was very happy with that," said Sadler. "Anytime you can get a good top ten run at any of these tracks you have done a good job. Track position is very important here and we will get a good pit selection with that. And that is really important for my guys."

Ryan Newman and Kurt Busch complete the top five.

"There's definitely a different feel all around this time just because of the impound," commented Busch. "We couldn't stick to our normal plan, so we had to change the car quite a bit from last year's races."

Forty-seven cars attempted to qualify for the forty-three car field. Failing to make the show were Joey McCarthy, Hermie Sadler, Wayne Anderson and Derrike Cope.