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A.J. Allmendinger won his first Sprint Cup Series pole on Friday when he was fastest in qualifying for Saturday’s Subway Fresh Fit 600 at Phoenix International Raceway.

Allmendinger, driving a Ford for Richard Petty Motorsports, turned a lap at 134.675 mph at the 1-mile PIR oval.

“It is exciting to get that first pole,” Allmendinger said. “It is a small victory, but it means so much to this race team and me. In this sport, it is all about confidence. To know we have a good car and to go out there and back it up in qualifying is great. We seemed to be just missing it a little bit each week, so to go out there and get the job done is a big deal.”

Second fastest was Scott Speed of Red Bull Racing.

“We kind of figured after practice that we were pretty good,” Speed said. “We made a pretty big change and made one last run and made a pretty big mistake during the run and ended up 33rd in practice. We thought if we could just clean up the lap it would be better. Obviously we didn’t expect it to be one second better, but we’ll take it. Things are starting off this weekend a little bit better than the last two.

“I had to shave all the black hair because that seemed to be bad luck. I also named our car, her name is ‘Rattlesnake.’ I think it’s kind of mean and sounds fast. We’re in Phoenix, so it fits. I don’t know which one of those has changed our luck around, but we’ll continue doing all of them.”

The third and fourth fastest drivers were Sam Hornish Jr. of Penske Racing and Marcos Ambrose.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was fifth and Joey Logano was sixth.

“I knew the first lap was the only lap after lap 1 our car would just go away really bad in qualifying trim, so I had to get everything we could and just not make any mistakes that first lap because that was the only opportunity for us,” Earnhardt said. “Our car lost a good two or three-tenths on that second lap every time we tried it today.”

Jimmie Johnson, the series points leader and winner of four of the last five Cup races at PIR, qualified 16th fastest.

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