Kasey Kahne qualified second for Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. (Photo: Getty Images)

Kahne, of Richard Petty Motorsports, confirmed that he is competing here with Dodge’s latest R6 V-8 engine. “The engine is running awesome. It just felt really good,” said Kahne, winner of the spring race here in2006. “I could feel the racetrack around the whole corner and down the straightaways. It was really about all I had. I’m looking forward to this weekend. We’ve made some really nice gains in our engine shop here the last few months.”

Row 2 is occupied by former series champions Kurt Busch of Penske Racing and Tony Stewart, owner/driver of Stewart-Haas Racing. Busch will start third after lapping at 28.281-seconds/190.941 mph; Stewart earned the fourth spot at 28.328 seconds/190.624 mph in the No. 14 Office Depot/Old Spice Impala SS. Stewart is fifth in points among the 12 Chasers, a massive 279 behind Johnson. Busch is sixth, 312 points out.

“It was an excellent lap,” said Busch, driver of the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger. “We thought we could do OK, but we exceeded our expectations by running third. To be three-hundredths of a second from getting the pole, it makes you scratch your head and think maybe if I tried a little harder, I would have got it. But then there are times when you try too hard and you overstep the line and end up 15th to 20th. It’s a really, really good lap for us.

“This car is brand new. We wanted to bring it to Charlotte, but I thought we should take a step back with the car that we brought to Charlotte and use this one here at Texas. A little bit of R & D work going on. Right now, I would say the engineering department is winning over the driver, and that’s the way it always should be. The lap was a nice surprise for us.”

Joey Logano (14th) was the highest-qualifying Raybestos Rookie of the Year candidate, posting a lap at 28.451-seconds/189.800 mph in the No. 20 Home Depot Toyota Camry fielded by Joe Gibbs Racing.

“The car drove pretty good,” said Logano, 19th in points overall. “Wish our car had a little bit more grip. Felt like I left about a half-a-tenth out there, which would have put me on the pole (at the time). It kind of is what it is there. I got into (Turn) 3 and I got to the gas a little bit too hard, initially. It sent me off the line. I went through the first time and said, ‘Wow, this thing has a lot of grip.’ And, I went through the second time expecting the grip and it did, just not as much as I thought.

“In qualifying, you’d rather get a little bit extra and slip up a little bit than under drive it. Can’t be too disappointed with it. I wish we were P1, but overall can’t complain that much.”

Speaking from the experience of six finishes of 22nd or worse here – including two 43rd/last-place runs – Gordon warned that TMS, even as its surface continues to mature, remains a tricky track.

“The straightaways are very flat here compared to how high-banked the corners are,” said Gordon, who lead 105 laps in April and has paced 446 overall. “And those transitions really challenge you. Plus there’s some bumps and the corners are fast. But they’re tight. The walls come out at you very, very quick. So it’s not an easy track. Even when we won here earlier in the season, it was not an easy win. There were times when the car was pretty out of control, so we expect a lot of the same of that on Sunday. And we’re going to work hard on that (Saturday).”

The checkered flag is scheduled to fall Sunday at 2 p.m., CST.

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or Speed Channel

– John Sturbin can be reached at jsturbin@racintoday.com