NASCAR Championship contender Kyle Busch will start from pole position for the Bank of America 500 at Charlotte.

It is Busch’s third pole of 2014 and second at what is the sport’s home track.

“We’ll see how this weekend goes. Hopefully, we can come out of here with a solid finish,” said Busch.

As the Chase for the Sprint Cup continues to wind down, Busch is sitting second in the points with this race being critcal for a number of big stars after last weekend’s race in Kansas.

Jeff Gordon will start alongside, whileDenny Hamlin, Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman round out the top-five starters.

Stewart, Paul Menard, Brian Vickers, Kurt Busch and Greg Biffle were the only non-Chase drivers in the final round of qualifying.

Kurt Busch set a record for fastest speed on a 1.5-mile track at 198.771 mph in the second round. The SHR driver eventually qualified 11th.

Australia’s Marcos Ambrose will start from 27th.

“Our Stanley Ford was pretty fast in practice,but we have been working on the car too,” said Ambrose.

“The car has speed, but we need to get the handling better. You really had to have a clean lap to get all the speed out of the car tonight because we had a lot of fast laps.”

QUALIFYING: Bank of America 500 – Charlotte Motor Speedway 

POS.	CAR	DRIVER	MANUFACTURER	SPONSOR	MPH	BEST TIME	BEHIND
1	18	Kyle Busch		Doublemint	197.390	27.357	Leader
2	24	Jeff Gordon		Drive to End Hunger	197.217	27.381	–0.024
3	11	Denny Hamlin		FedEx Ground	197.087	27.399	–0.042
4	14	Tony Stewart		Bass Pro Shops / Mobil 1	196.542	27.475	–0.118
5	31	Ryan Newman		Caterpillar	196.442	27.489	–0.132
6	27	Paul Menard		Shrock / Menards	196.100	27.537	–0.180
7	4	Kevin Harvick		Budweiser	195.837	27.574	–0.217
8	55	Brian Vickers		Aaron’s Dream Machine	195.744	27.587	–0.230
9	88	Dale Earnhardt Jr		Diet Mountain Dew	194.953	27.699	–0.342
10	99	Carl Edwards		Fastenal	194.861	27.712	–0.355
11	41	Kurt Busch		State Water Heaters	194.328	27.788	–0.431
12	16	Greg Biffle		3M Bondo Ford	191.598	28.184	–0.827
13	22	Joey Logano		Pennzoil Platinum	196.485	27.483	–0.126
14	10	Danica Patrick		GoDaddy Breast Cancer Awareness	196.464	27.486	–0.129
15	43	Aric Almirola		Smithfield-Waffle House	196.442	27.489	–0.132
16	51	Justin Allgaier		BRANDT Professional Agriculture	196.414	27.493	–0.136
17	2	Brad Keselowski		Detroit Genuine Parts	196.278	27.512	–0.155
18	1	Jamie McMurray		McDonald’s Monopoly	196.278	27.512	–0.155
19	5	Kasey Kahne		Pepsi	196.271	27.513	–0.156
20	3	Austin Dillon		Dow	196.207	27.522	–0.165
21	48	Jimmie Johnson		Lowe’s	196.171	27.527	–0.170
22	20	Matt Kenseth		Dollar General	196.114	27.535	–0.178
23	78	Martin Truex Jr		Furniture Row	195.730	27.589	–0.232
24	42	Kyle Larson		Target	195.673	27.597	–0.240
25	15	Clint Bowyer		Pink Lemonade 5-hour Energy Benefiting LBBC	195.291	27.651	–0.294
26	47	AJ Allmendinger		Scott Products	195.277	27.653	–0.296
27	9	Marcos Ambrose		Stanley	194.665	27.740	–0.383
28	17	Ricky Stenhouse Jr		Zest Ford	194.273	27.796	–0.439
29	13	Casey Mears		No. 13 GEICO Chevrolet SS	194.112	27.819	–0.462
30	36	Reed Sorenson		Zing Zang Chevrolet	193.736	27.873	–0.516
31	95	Michael McDowell		Pieters Pals/KLOVE	193.465	27.912	–0.555
32	40	Landon Cassill		TBA	193.368	27.926	–0.569
33	23	Alex Bowman		Dr. Pepper Toyota Camry	193.223	27.947	–0.590
34	34	David Ragan		CSX – Play It Safe	193.175	27.954	–0.597
35	7	Michael Annett		Cypress HQ No. 7 Chevrolet	193.078	27.968	–0.611
36	26	Cole Whitt		Rinnai Toyota Camry	192.974	27.983	–0.626
37	38	David Gilliland		MDS Transport	192.788	28.010	–0.653
38	98	Josh Wise		Provident Metals	192.082	28.113	–0.756
39	66	Brett Moffitt		RoyalTeakCollection.com	191.775	28.158	–0.801
40	33	Timmy Hill		retroinfinity.com	190.975	28.276	–0.919
41	83	J.J. Yeley		Painter’s Ice Cream Toyota Camry	190.235	28.386	–1.029
42	77	Corey Lajoie		Essex Homes	190.235	28.386	–1.029
43	32	Blake Koch		Leaf Filter	187.396	28.816	–1.459

Get the latest NASCAR news, stats and betting insights at MotorRacing.com