AVONDALE, Ariz. (AP) – The big news Friday at Phoenix International Raceway was that Ryan Newman did not win the pole position for the NASCAR Nextel Cup race.

That honor went instead to Jeff Gordon, who posted a speed of 133.675 mph in beating out reigning series champion Kurt Busch’s 133.254. Those two will start on the front row Saturday in the inaugural Subway Fresh 500 – the first of two races this season at PIR.

The situation appeared perfect for Newman, NASCAR’s top qualifier, to grab a pole on the 1-mile Phoenix oval for the fourth straight time. The driver who has won three poles already this season and 30 in just 124 career races, was the last of 46 drivers to make a qualifying attempt.

But Newman’s No. 12 Dodge skidded nearly sideways on the second turn of his second of two qualifying laps and he quickly took his foot off the gas. Newman’s first lap of 132.915 was good enough to qualify seventh.

“It wasn’t bad,” Newman said. “We struggled coming to the green flag and that hurt the first lap. I just tried to get too much out of it coming off turn two on the second lap and that was it.

“I’m proud of saving the car, but I’m not proud of what I did. It’s disappointing because we had a shot at winning the pole, but we’ll have more shots.”

Gordon, who won his first Phoenix pole and will now try for his first Phoenix win, said he expected Newman to knock him off the top spot.

“I was hoping when he beat me it would be by half a second so I didn’t go home thinking I could have done it if I had just done this or done that,” Gordon said. “He’s been on a such a roll lately. He was really pushing hard and he was on the pole until he got loose out there.”

After struggling in practice on Thursday, Gordon was somewhat surprised to be on top even before Newman went out.

“We were pretty far off,” Gordon said. “We made some adjustments to free the car up. That first lap, I was pretty nervous because the car was real loose. But the tire pressures came up, the car tightened up a little bit and now I’m sitting here shocked that we’re on the pole.”

Greg Biffle, coming off a victory at Texas, qualified third, followed by Bobby Labonte and Brian Vickers.

AP-ES-04-22-05 2109EDT