Jeff Gordon bounced back from a brutal crash last week at Las Vegas Motor Speedway to win the pole for Sunday's Kobalt Tools 500. Dale Earnhardt Jr., in his first AMS start in a Hendrick Motorsports car, took the outside pole, with his old Dale Earnhardt Inc. teammate Martin Truex Jr. qualifying third.

Carl Edwards, in fourth, was the fastest Ford, and Bobby Labonte's No. 43 led the Dodge camp by qualifying fifth.

Kyle Busch was sixth, best among the Toyota contingent.

Earnhardt traced his success on Friday to a test session at AMS last fall, when he first took the wheel of his current car.

"We had a good test last year," he said, adding that Atlanta is one of his favorite tracks and a place where he feels confident that he could his first points win of the season. His Budweiser Shootout victory was a non-points race.

"We need to get to Victory Circle ASAP," he said.

Gordon's pole, the 64th of his career, is his second at AMS, where he is a four-time Cup winner.

"This is a very fast race track, and it's tough to get around here quick," he said. "To put down a lap like that [185.251 mph] feels good."

He said any soreness from the crash isn't affecting him his driving. "That pretty much went away right away," he said.

Roush denies team cheated

NASCAR's top three divisions were on the track at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Friday, but the activities on the speedway created far less buzz than the debate over whether the loose oil-tank cover on Carl Edwards' winning Ford last week at Las Vegas was the result of normal wear-and-tear or outright cheating.

Edwards' team owner Jack Roush reacted swiftly to published accusations by Toyota's racing boss Lee White that the oil-tank lid was intentionally left loose to give the car more downforce.

Roush walked into a news conference to announce a new sponsor, Aflac, carrying an oil-tank cover that he used in a vigorous defense of his team, which was docked 100 points, fined $100,000 and saw crew chief Bob Osborne suspended for six races.

Roush said he was considering subjecting all of the parties involved to a lie-detector test. White, senior vice president and general manager of Toyota Racing Development USA, ratcheted up the debate by telling USA Today that Toyota's testing at wind tunnels in Germany showed that removing the oil-tank lid was good for 170 counts of downforce, which would help the car stick to the track.

Roush said that statement is an admission by White that Toyota is testing illegal configurations. Several other drivers and mechanics in the garage seemed to agree with White that Edwards' crew intentionally broke the rules.

AMS a good test of new spacers

NASCAR's new rules designed to slow the Nationwide Series cars appear to be working. Practice speeds dropped nearly 13 miles per hour off Kyle Busch's 191.080 mph pole run last March.

The spacer, which is similar to the restrictor plates used at Daytona and Talladega, means drivers will now be forced to stay in the throttle longer as they enter the turns to keep their speeds up.

"We're faster in the corners now, which is probably making it a little more dangerous at the same time," said Unadilla's David Ragan.