Johnson takes pole at Texas Motor Speedway

Jimmie Johnson finished his qualifying run at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas, with the fastest lap of the day, then stayed in his car while waiting to see if anybody would knock him off the pole.

It turned out the same way it did a week earlier in Martinsville, Va.

When the Sprint Cup points leader finally climbed out of the cockpit of his No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet more than 30 minutes later Friday, after Brad Keselowski and the rest of the field failed to top his lap of 191.076 mph, he was the polesitter for the second week in a row.

“I was ready to get out, and my engine tuner stuck his head in and said, ‘Hey, man, you’re going to be sitting here a long time this week,’ ” Johnson said. “Oh, yeah, that’s right. I’m not superstitious, but I’ll sit here. … It doesn’t mean anything, but at this point in the season, you have to pull out all of the stops.”

Johnson’s 29th career pole is his first at Texas, where he was the runner-up in April.

With his win from the pole at Martinsville, Johnson regained the series points lead, by two over Keselowski.

Keselowski was the 44th of 46 drivers who did qualifying runs. His lap of 189.534 mph was good for the eighth spot. It was the best qualifying effort for Keselowski since the 12-driver championship chase started two months ago.

Kyle Busch qualified third, just ahead of Clint Bowyer, who is third in the Sprint Cup standings behind Johnson and Keselowski.

Sauter wins truck race; Buescher keeps lead

Johnny Sauter regained the lead with 1 1 laps to go in Fort Worth, Texas, and went on to his second NASCAR Truck Series victory this season, both coming at Texas.

Season points leader James Buescher, who started second, finished 1 1 th – the last truck on the lead lap. With two races left, his points lead over Ty Dillon was cut from 21 to 15. Dillon finished fifth.

Patrick to get used to new nomenclature

Danica Patrick will have to get used to being called “old man” sometimes.

That’s the phrase Tony Gibson, her new NASCAR Sprint Cup crew chief, has so often used to refer to drivers he’s working with, including Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Gibson said the phrase just comes out for some odd reason and he’ll probably call Patrick “old man” a few times.