Updated

NASCAR Sprint Cup points leader Greg Biffle won the pole for tomorrow night’s Bojangles’ Southern 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Darlington Raceway.

In the midst of a career year, Biffle was the penultimate driver to go out and put down a lap of 180.257 miles per hour, the only driver to crack the 180 mph barrier. It was his 11th career pole and second of the season.

Biffle will be flanked on Row 1 by five-time series champion Jimmie Johnson.

Johnson, who has run well at every non-restrictor-plate track this season, ran 179.566 miles per hour in his familiar No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. His teammate Kasey Kahne ran an identical speed, but Johnson will start ahead of Kahne based on points. Kahne was been hot of late, with four consecutive top-10 finishes and back-to-back top fives.

Behind the Hendrick duo was the Stewart-Haas Racing Chevy of Ryan Newman at 179.461 mph. Then came the Toyotas of Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr.

Completing the top 10 were Carl Edwards, Denny Hamlin, last year’s winner Regan Smith and Jeff Burton. Dale Earnhardt Jr. qualified 24th and Danica Patrick 38th.

Biffle is the points leader by a margin of 7 over teammate Matt Kenseth and 9 over Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100.