"That's all it had, plus they won't let me go again," joked Benson.

Benson and his Valvoline teammates spent much of the hot day at Darlington working to get the Valvoline Pontiac from the back of the pack where it began practice. Throughout the day the James Ince-led crew made the car more and more drivable and he climbed up the scoring sheet.

"We came a long way compared to where we were this morning," Benson said. "But our guys did the job. It isn't like we won the pole but we feel a whole lot better about what we were doing at the end compared to where we were in the beginning."

Ricky Craven won the pole for Sunday's race and will be flanked by Jeff Gordon on the front row.

Qualifying Results

Pos. Driver Speed

1 Ricky Craven 170.088

2 Jeff Gordon 170.070

3 Ryan Newman* 169.894

4 Steve Park 169.350

5 Jimmie Johnson* 169.216

6 Elliott Sadler 169.117

7 Jimmy Spencer 168.989

8 Ken Schrader 168.861

9 Jeff Green 168.798

10 Bill Elliott 168.746

11 Sterling Marlin 168.676

12 Bobby Labonte 168.601

13 Kurt Busch 168.578

14 Jeff Burton 168.532

15 Ward Burton 168.526

16 Kevin Harvick 168.509

17 Michael Waltrip 168.497

18 Rusty Wallace 168.382

19 Jeremy Mayfield 168.376

20 Jerry Nadeau 167.933

21 Ricky Rudd 167.864

22 Dale Jarrett 167.853

23 Dale Earnhardt Jr. 167.813

24 Johnny Benson 167.778

25 Dave Blaney 167.658

26 Bobby Hamilton 167.607

27 Joe Nemechek 167.567

28 Robby Gordon 167.498

29 Mike Skinner 167.476

30 Kyle Petty 167.362

31 Mark Martin 167.288

32 Stacy Compton 167.288

33 Brett Bodine 167.276

34 Matt Kenseth 167.179

35 John Andretti 167.179

36 Tony Stewart 166.884

37 Terry Labonte 166.371

38 Buckshot Jones 166.534

39 Hut Stricklin 166.253

40 Casey Atwood 165.570

41 Rick Mast 166.163

42 Shawna Robinson* 154.641

43 Andy Hillenburg 155.389