(Sports Network) - Erik Darnell won Friday's qualifying for the Mountain Dew 250 Craftsman Truck Series race at the Talladega Superspeedway. The No. 99 Roush Fenway Racing Ford driver rounded the 2.66-mile track in 52.687 seconds (181.753 m.p.h.).

It was Darnell's second pole of the season and the third of his truck career. He won the pole for the season-opener in February at Daytona.

"This pole here goes back to everybody at the shop, all the guys that worked on this truck really hard," Darnell said. "We focused primarily yesterday on getting it to run well in the draft, and I think we accomplished that. It doesn't really matter where you start here, but we have a good truck and we're looking to have fun tomorrow."

Two weeks ago, Darnell led a race-high 56 laps at Las Vegas, but finished 0.02 seconds behind winner Mike Skinner.

John Wes Townley captured the second starting position with a time of 52.742, and Colin Braun qualified third at 52.879, giving Roush the first three starting positions at Talladega. It's the first 1-2-3 qualifying effort for a team owner in series history.

Jon Wood (53.411) and Todd Bodine (53.526) rounded out the top-five.

Sixth through 10th were: Joey Logano, Ron Hornaday, Jr., Dennis Setzer, Skinner and Mike Wallace.

Only one point separates Hornaday from leader Johnny Benson in the championship standings. Benson saw his 74-point lead disappear with a 27th- place finish at Las Vegas. He cut a right-front tire and slammed into the wall during the mid-stages of the race. Hornaday dealt with an ill-handling truck in the early going but rallied for a fifth-place finish.

Benson will start 17th at Talladega.

Logano, meanwhile, will make his first career truck start at Talladega. The 18-year-old NASCAR (web|news) phenom will drive the No. 59 Toyota for team owner Jim Harris. He made his first Nationwide start in May at Dover and his Sprint Cup debut in September at New Hampshire.



















The green flag for Saturday's race is scheduled to drop around 4:00 p.m. (et).







































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