KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) – Joe Nemechek now has two poles in a row after leading qualifying Friday for the NASCAR Nextel Cup race at Kansas Speedway.

Teammates Kasey Kahne and Jeremy Mayfield were the closest to him Friday.

Rookie Kahne, also second in Busch Series qualifying earlier in the day, turned a lap of 179.253. Mayfield, fastest of the 10 drivers racing for the Nextel Cup championship, ran 179.188.

Another title contender, Jimmie Johnson, was next at 179.045, followed by Bobby Labonte at 178.891, Greg Biffle at 178.453, and contenders Ryan Newman, the defending race winner, at 178.424, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. at 178.389.

Earnhardt will go into Sunday’s race trailing series leader Kurt Busch by 12 points after NASCAR docked Junior 25 earlier this week for cursing during a live TV interview after his victory last Sunday at Talladega.

Junior was pretty happy with his qualifying effort after struggling on similar 11/2-mile ovals earlier this year. And he’s still smarting from being knocked out of first place by NASCAR’s penalty with seven of 10 races remaining in the Chase for the Nextel Cup.

“What I did was not correct, but I don’t think it’s fair to take points off the scoreboard,” Earnhardt said. “Still, we’ve got a lot of racing left to do and we’ll try to make sure those 25 points don’t make any difference when it’s over.”

Busch, the only driver in the title chase to have finished among the top five in each of the first three races, was 22nd in qualifying. Third-place Jeff Gordon was a very disappointing 30th.

Among the other contenders, Elliott Sadler was 11th, defending series champion Matt Kenseth 15th, Mark Martin 18th and Tony Stewart 20th.

AP-ES-10-08-04 1826EDT