Newman takes record seventh Atlanta pole.

Ryan Newman earned a record-tying seventh career pole position at Atlanta Motor Speedway after posting a lap of 193.124mph during Friday's Georgia Power Qualifying Night session.

The Alltel Dodge driver tied mentor Buddy Baker's record with the lap, which eclipsed the rest of the field by more than two miles per hour.

"I've been around the track with him, backwards and forwards, and he's showed me what to do and what not to do," said Newman, who first toured the high banks of Atlanta with Baker in a passenger car, "It's gratifying, it's rewarding - and I couldn't think of a better person to share the record with than Buddy Baker."

Newman won six straight poles at Atlanta between 2003-2005, although that streak was snapped last spring, when fellow Dodge pilot Kasey Kahne stole the top spot.

"I had my name on [pole] for a while, but we came back last spring and were second to Kasey by just a couple of thousandths," Newman said, "It's a little bit sweeter for sure, based on the struggles from last year."

In spite of spending the week in bed with the flu, Elliott Sadler recovered sufficiently to qualify second to Newman, posting a lap of 191.894mph in the #19 Dodge Dealers/UAW entry.

"It's been a long, tough week for me, but I'm definitely on the back side of that now," Sadler said, "It was a great lap. To qualify second, I'm very proud of that. It's a great way to start a weekend."

Last week's race winner, and defending Nextel Cup champion, Jimmie Johnson, put the #48 Lowe's Chevrolet third fastest.

"I feel like, if we had another try at it - and I'm sure everyone says this - we could have improved our time," Johnson said, "That was the best qualifying run we've had a in a long time. And we're usually better Sunday than Friday."

Rounding out the top five were points leader Mark Martin and second overall Jeff Gordon, while local driver Reed Sorenson qualified eleventh, meeting his expectations.

"The car was really good in race trim," Sorenson said, "It wasn't that good in qualifying trim during practice, so tenth or eleventh is good for us."

Another local, David Ragan, was more disappointed with his qualifying run, which proved to be good enough only for 45th out of 51 qualifiers. Because of last season's owner points, however, Ragan is guaranteed a starting spot and will come out of the gate 38th.

"It was an average lap, we've just got to work on qualifying," Ragan said, "If we can't be on the pole, there's no need in me taking a chance on tearing things up. I feel like I've got a pretty good car for the race, we'll just need to come from the back."

Bobby Labonte, David Stremme, Mike Bliss and Scott Riggs made it a good qualifying session for Dodge, all making the top ten and none more delighted than ZoneLoans.com driver Bliss, who finally made the field in a 2007 Cup race. Kyle Busch split the Dodge's in eighth spot, while Juan Montoya put his Texaco/Havoline example into 16th place.

It was another tough night for Toyota, however, and, while Dave Blaney, Brian Vickers and rookie David Reutimann all made it into the field along with veteran Dale Jarrett, who again had to use a former champion provisional - his fourth from six available this year - Michael Waltrip, Jeremy Mayfield and AJ Allmendinger all missed the cut, Mayfield and Allmendinger for the fourth time in four races this season.