by By Curtis Pashelka Bay Area News Group , San Jose Mercury News

Vickers was nearly flawless Friday afternoon as he drove the 10-turn, 1.99-mile track at Infineon Raceway in 76.475 seconds to grab the pole position for Sunday's Toyota/Save Mart 350. It's his second straight pole, fourth of the season and ninth in 188 career Cup races.

Kyle Busch, the defending champion, also will start on the first row as he qualified second with a lap time of 76.690 seconds. Marcos Ambrose (76.918) will start third, completing Toyota's sweep of the top three qualifying spots for the first time since 2007 at Talladega.

Vickers has six top-10 finishes this season but is 17th in the driver standings, 136 points behind 12th place Jeff Burton with 11 races remaining before the Chase begins at Loudon, N.H., in September.

"You make a mistake on a road course and you leave a lot on the table," said Vickers, whose previous best qualifying effort was 18th in 2005. "(Our) guys did a tremendous job coming here and practicing. We wanted to make no mistakes."

The three previous times this season Vickers has grabbed the pole at Fontana, Richmond (Va.) and Michigan last week he's finished an average of 11th.

"Maybe my mental preparation for here (as opposed to Michigan) takes a little bit longer because there are (10) turns here instead of two," Vickers said. "But I still mentally walk myself through the lap several times, especially prior to qualifying."

Vickers' teammate Scott Speed had a solid qualifying run going before he drove into the grass after Turn 10 and finished with a lap time of 78.743 seconds. Because his No. 82 Red Bull Toyota is 36th in owner points, Speed was one of 11 drivers who needed to qualify for the race based on time. Only the top eight got into the race, and Speed's lap time was ninth-best.

Other failing to qualify were Tom Hubert, Chris Cook and Brian Simo.

Sprint Cup points leader Tony Stewart, a two-time winner at Sonoma, had a lap time of 77 seconds to qualify fourth. "It might have been the ugliest lap I've ever turned in Sonoma," Stewart said.

Los Gatos native A.J. Allmendinger, who is 31st in driver points and has only one top-20 finish in the past nine races, qualified 20th.

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