Waiting game a winner as Matt Kenseth wins Texas pole

FORT WORTH, Texas — First was fast for Matt Kenseth at Texas Motor Speedway, putting the Joe Gibbs Racing driver on the pole position for Sunday's AAA Texas 500.

During the final round of qualifying, Kenseth was the first to hit the 1.5-mile oval, and his 199.299-mph lap withstood the challenge of the other 11 drivers.

Kenseth will lead Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson (who has won the past two November races at Texas), Kurt Busch and Kevin Harvick to the green flag for the 500-mile race.

Tony Stewart, who set a track record with a second-round lap at 200.111 mph that is the fastest on a 1.5-mile track in NASCAR history, qualified sixth, followed by Ryan Newman, Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Busch, Joey Logano, Carl Edwards and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

It was the second pole of the season for the 2003 series champion, whose average starting spot has slipped to a four-year low of 15.0 while struggling with the debut of a new group qualifying format that replaced single-car sessions.

"This qualifying has been really strange for me," said Kenseth, who will make consecutive top-five starts for only the second time in 2014. "When it first came about, I've always been a bad qualifier and just to do one lap and hit it perfect, it's hard. I'm like 'OK, you'll get a few shots at it, it's more like race conditions, it's going to be so much easier for me.' It's actually been just the opposite. There's so much going on all the time."

The final round often devolves into a game of chicken in which drivers wait to go last, taking advantage of cooler track conditions while resting their engines.

Crew chief Jason Ratcliff elected to dispatch Kenseth's No. 20 Toyota with about 90 seconds remaining in the five-minute session — which helped reduce the pressure on his driver.

"Early in the year especially, it was kind of stressing me out," Kenseth said. "When do I go? When do I stop? When do I turn the motor off so it don't get hot? You're always worried about all that stuff. Jason changed that on me, and I just do what he tells me now, and it's way less stress. Go or wait? Go? OK."

It's the 13th career pole and the first in Sprint Cup at Texas for Kenseth, who has raced 15 years full-time in NASCAR's premier series.

"If he qualified on pole, we're in for a long night," Johnson said with a laugh.

Six of the remaining eight Chase drivers reached the final round at Texas, which marks the middle of the three-race segment that will set the four-driver field for the season finale.

Brad Keselowski was the only championship contender who failed to advance from the first round. The Team Penske driver, whose title hopes are reeling after opening the third round with a 31st at Martinsville Speedway, will start 26th — his worst qualifying effort at Texas in more than three years.

It's only the fourth time this season that Keselowski's No. 2 Ford has started outside the top 20, and it's his lowest qualifying spot in 2014 outside of Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway.

"I thought we had a little more speed, but we didn't," he said. "We're still in the race. We'll move on to (Saturday's) practice and keep working on that."

Chase driver Denny Hamlin also struggled and will start 20th after being eliminated in the second round.

Follow Nate Ryan on Twitter @nateryan.

GALLERY: BEST OF THE 2014 CHASE FOR THE SPRINT CUP

AAA Texas 500 Lineup

1. (20) Matt Kenseth, Toyota, 199.299 mph.

2. (24) Jeff Gordon, Chevrolet, 199.291.

3. (48) Jimmie Johnson, Chevrolet, 198.983.

4. (41) Kurt Busch, Chevrolet, 198.91.

5. (4) Kevin Harvick, Chevrolet, 198.836.

6. (14) Tony Stewart, Chevrolet, 198.508.

7. (31) Ryan Newman, Chevrolet, 198.5.

8. (78) Martin Truex Jr., Chevrolet, 198.398.

9. (18) Kyle Busch, Toyota, 198.333.

10. (22) Joey Logano, Ford, 198.071.

11. (99) Carl Edwards, Ford, 198.042.

12. (88) Dale Earnhardt Jr., Chevrolet, 197.744.

13. (55) Brian Vickers, Toyota, 198.646.

14. (5) Kasey Kahne, Chevrolet, 198.632.

15. (27) Paul Menard, Chevrolet, 198.515.

16. (9) Marcos Ambrose, Ford, 198.493.

17. (42) Kyle Larson, Chevrolet, 198.354.

18. (17) Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Ford, 198.311.

19. (16) Greg Biffle, Ford, 198.129.

20. (11) Denny Hamlin, Toyota, 197.773.

21. (1) Jamie McMurray, Chevrolet, 197.751.

22. (43) Aric Almirola, Ford, 197.477.

23. (47) AJ Allmendinger, Chevrolet, 197.087.

24. (15) Clint Bowyer, Toyota, 196.707.

25. (21) Trevor Bayne, Ford, 197.571.

26. (2) Brad Keselowski, Ford, 197.181.

27. (10) Danica Patrick, Chevrolet, 196.822.

28. (95) Michael McDowell, Ford, 196.685.

29. (3) Austin Dillon, Chevrolet, 196.635.

30. (51) Justin Allgaier, Chevrolet, 196.385.

31. (38) David Gilliland, Ford, 196.364.

32. (36) Reed Sorenson, Chevrolet, 195.986.

33. (7) Michael Annett, Chevrolet, 195.751.

34. (40) Landon Cassill, Chevrolet, 195.744.

35. (23) Alex Bowman, Toyota, 195.659.

36. (98) Josh Wise, Chevrolet, 195.503.

37. (34) David Ragan, Ford, Owner Points.

38. (13) Casey Mears, Chevrolet, Owner Points.

39. (83) J.J. Yeley, Toyota, Owner Points.

40. (26) Cole Whitt, Toyota, Owner Points.

41. (66) Brett Moffitt, Toyota, Owner Points.

42. (33) Timmy Hill, Chevrolet, Owner Points.

43. (32) Joey Gase, Ford, Owner Points.