Gordon’s late show wins pole

No one seemed more surprised by the speed Jeff Gordon found in his Chevrolet here Thursday night than Jeff Gordon.

“I couldn’t believe we ran that fast,” the four-time NASCAR Nextel Cup champion said after winning the pole position for Saturday night’s Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix International Raceway.

Gordon turned a lap at 133.136 mph to top the 43-car field, which is racing with NASCAR’s new Car of Tomorrow for the third time.

“We made a lot of adjustments at the end of practice” that helped, said Gordon, who drives for Hendrick Motorsports.

So too did his late draw in the qualifying order, which allowed him to take advantage of cooling track temperatures. Gordon was 37th of the 50 drivers who made qualifying runs.

“It’s pretty incredible how much this place picks up [speed] when the sun goes down,” he said.

Jamie McMurray was second at 132.577 mph in a Roush Fenway Racing Ford and will start on the outside of the front row.

Denny Hamlin of Joe Gibbs Racing was third in a Chevy at 132.567 mph and Scott Riggs of Evernham Motorsports was fourth in a Dodge at 132.338 mph.

It was Gordon’s third pole of the season and the third time he has won the pole at the one-mile oval here.

But Gordon has scored none of his 75 Cup victories at Phoenix International, and no Cup driver has won here from the pole.

Gordon, 35, also hasn’t won a race yet this year but leads the Cup standings, thanks to five top-five finishes in seven races.

Meanwhile, all seven Toyota drivers again had to try to qualify on time because they were not among the top 35 in owner points who automatically make the race.

Only two succeeded. Dave Blaney of Bill Davis Racing will start 11th and David Reutimann of Michael Waltrip Racing will start 25th.

Reutimann’s teammate Dale Jarrett also failed to qualify on time, but will start the race using a past champion’s provisional starting spot.

Waltrip himself also did not qualify, for the sixth consecutive race. He hasn’t competed since the season-opening Daytona 500 two months ago.

The race here is expected to be the first true test of the Car of Tomorrow’s aerodynamic properties because its first two races were on small, half-mile tracks.

The different manufacturers -- Chevrolet, Ford, Dodge and Toyota -- attach their own body shells and engines to the basic Car of Tomorrow chassis, which was designed to make the drivers safer and promote closer racing.

Several drivers have said the car so far is “tight,” or hard to turn, a problem exacerbated by the tricky corners at Phoenix International.

But two-time Phoenix winner Dale Earnhardt Jr., who qualified 15th, said he was “really encouraged by how well we’ve done in the first two races with the new race car,” a seventh at Bristol, Tenn., and a fifth at Martinsville, Va.

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Kyle Busch dismissed as a “non-issue” his decision to leave Texas Motor Speedway last Sunday while his crew was repairing his car, which prompted his crew to enlist Earnhardt to drive Busch’s Chevrolet for the final few laps.

Busch and Earnhardt were involved in a crash and “I presumed the car was finished,” Busch said at a news conference before practice.

“I never had a team member or anyone else say further that we were going to try to get it back out,” he said.

The Hendrick Motorsports driver said he later heard on the radio that Earnhardt had finished the race in his car, which earned Busch three additional Cup points.

Busch, 21, acknowledged that it was “partially my problem” that he didn’t talk to his team before leaving, and that the team would have new “crash procedures” to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

He added: “I don’t feel like I let my teammates down, and they tell me I didn’t let them down.”

But some other drivers questioned Busch’s actions.

Said Clint Bowyer of Richard Childress Racing, “If you tear your race car up, the least you can do is stay around and see if they can fix it or not.”

james.peltz@latimes.com