Kasey Kahne, driver of the #5 Farmers Insurance Chevrolet, poses in Victory Lane with Miss Coors Light, Rachel Rupert and the Coors Light Pole Award after qualifying for the pole position in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway Friday. — AFP

KANSAS CITY — NASCAR championship contender Kasey Kahne shattered the track record at repaved Kansas Speedway Friday to take the pole for Sunday’s race.



Michael Waltrip Racing teammates Mark Martin and Clint Bowyer were next fastest, and all 43 cars in the field broke the previous lap record set by Matt Kenseth in 2005.



“All the drivers are high-fiving each other because we came back here alive,” joked Kyle Busch, who qualified fourth. “The minimum speed through the corner is amazing.”



Bowyer is coming off a win last week at Charlotte that put him back in the championship picture. He trails leader Brad Keselowski by 28 points with five races left in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. “That was a fast lap,” Bowyer said. “It’s unreal how much that gets your attention.”



Keselowski will start 25th after a lousy qualifying run. Jimmie Johnson is third in points and will start seventh, while Denny Hamlin will begin ninth after a hard crash in testing Thursday.



“You’re just driving your guts out and doing everything you can all the way around,” Johnson said. “You know it’s fast. You just don’t know if it’s fast enough.”



Three-time NASCAR champion Tony Stewart qualified worst of the Chase drivers in 33rd, while Regan Smith got sideways going through a corner and qualified 40th in Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s car.



Kansas Speedway underwent a massive renovation over the summer that replaced the worn-out asphalt original to the track while creating variable banking in the corners. The result has been some of the fastest speeds seen over the surface since IndyCars were running on it.



Mark Martin, who qualified second, said he’s concerned that one lane along the bottom of the track will make it difficult to pass. That’s been the case at some other repaved tracks.



Hamlin crashed the car he intended to use for Sunday’s race when he clipped the wall entering Turn 1 near the start of testing Thursday. He wound up making two visits to the infield care center before he was cleared by medical staff to resume testing in a backup car.



Smith was seventh-fastest in practice in Earnhardt’s No. 88 Chevy.



Earnhardt is missing his second straight race after sustaining two concussions in a six-week span and pulling himself from the car, even though he was in championship contention heading into Talladega.



A.J. Allmendinger qualified 13th in his second race with Phoenix Racing.



The team had been slated to use Smith for the final six races of the season after Kurt Busch left early to get a start on next year’s job with Furniture Row Racing.— AP