HOMESTEAD, Fla. (AP) – Jimmie Johnson, on the cusp of winning his first NASCAR Nextel Cup championship, had a few anxious moments Friday on the way to qualifying 15th for the season-ending Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

“We’re certainly excited to just get to work,” said Johnson, who needs to finish 12th or better in Sunday’s race to win his first title.

Since making himself the solid championship favorite with a second-place finish last Sunday in Phoenix that moved him 63 points in front of Matt Kenseth, Johnson has been inundated by media requests and asked repeatedly what it will take to win the title.

His answer has been to just keep doing what he and his team have been doing all season.

Johnson was 20th in the opening practice Friday. After his No. 48 Chevrolet crew made numerous changes to the car, Johnson’s lap of 176.569 mph was better than he ran in practice, but not that much better.

Kasey Kahne currently in ninth place out of the 10 drivers who qualified for the 10-race Chase for the championship, won his sixth pole of the season, matching Kurt Busch for the series lead. It is his 12th career pole.

“It was close. There are a lot of cars that are really close on time and I think that’s the way it’s going to be all weekend long. It’s going to be a close race,” said Kahne, whose lap of 178.259 knocked Evernham Motorsports teammate Scott Riggs off the top spot.

Kyle Busch, Kurt’s younger brother, kept Ray Evernham’s drivers from sweeping the top three spots, knocking Elliott Sadler out of third with a lap of 178.118.

Most of the attention, though, was focused on the drivers in the championship battle.

“That’s the best lap we’ve had all day,” Johnson said after stepping out of his car, unsure of how to feel with most of the qualifying laps still to come.

Johnson was fine with qualifying 15th.

“We have a great race car once again, so we will just take this and go on to Sunday,” he said. “We want to get out there and do the job we’ve been working so hard on and been trained to do.”

Four other drivers, led by Kenseth, go into Sunday’s race with a mathematical chance at the title.

Kenseth, who qualified 19th at 176.344, said, “It was a really good lap for us. For what we ran (in practice), that was really good.”

Asked if his No. 17 Roush Racing Ford will be good on Sunday, the 2003 Cup champion shrugged and said, “I hope so.”

Kevin Harvick, tied with Denny Hamlin for third in the standings, 90 points behind Johnson, was the best qualifier among the contenders. He will start seventh. Hamlin was the worst of the Chasers, qualifying 33rd, while fifth-place Dale Earnhardt Jr., 115 points out, was 14th.

All three will need both Johnson and Kenseth to have problems on Sunday to have any chance of winning the championship.

Hamlin, a 25-year-old rookie, said he doesn’t think any of the contenders are very concerned about their starting positions.

“This is a racetrack that it’s wide enough where you can pass and, really, that’s the most important thing for us,” the youngster said. “The only thing you worry about being back there is how you line up. You don’t want to be around cars that are getting wrecked a lot.”

Former Formula One star Juan Pablo Montoya qualified for his much-heralded Cup debut, one of seven drivers who made the field on speed.

He will start 29th.

Thirteen other drivers, including veteran Ward Burton and rookie David Ragan, who will replace longtime Cup star Mark Martin in the No. 6 Ford next year, failed to make the lineup.

AP-ES-11-17-06 1820EST