Darlington Raceway 2011 Southern 500 Starting Lineup: Kasey Kahne Leads NASCAR Qualifying With Track Record

Kasey Kahne won the pole for Saturday night’s Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, breaking Jamie McMurray’s year-old track record in the process.

Kahne, who went to Victory Lane in Darlington’s Truck race in March, became the new track record holder with an average speed of 181.254 mph during his lap. He was more than a tenth of a second faster than Ryan Newman, who will start on the outside pole.

The pole was the 21st of Kahne’s Sprint Cup career and fourth at Darlington. Newman, Denny Hamlin, Carl Edwards and Jeff Gordon rounded out the top five.

Gordon was on the provisional pole for awhile, and noted that driving around Turns 1 and 2 wide open in qualifying at Darlington is “an experience of a lifetime.”

Marcos Ambrose, AJ Allmendinger, Brian Vickers, Tony Stewart and Brad Keselowski rounded out the top 10.

There were a couple incidents during the go-or-go-home portion qualifying session: Scott Riggs blew a motor and Andy Lally scraped the wall, earning a big Darlington stripe.

Not surprisingly, those incidents caused their drivers to miss the race. Riggs and Lally both went home, along with Brian Keselowski.

Here is the starting lineup for the Showtime Southern 500 at Darlington:

Failed to qualify: Scott Riggs, Andy Lally, Brian Keselowski