The Associated Press

KANSAS CITY, Kan. - Joe Nemechek has rediscovered that old qualifying magic.

"Front Row Joe" went four years without winning a pole but now has two in a row after leading qualifying Friday for the NASCAR Nextel Cup race at Kansas Speedway.

The eighth pole of his career wasn't easy, though.

"That's as close as you can be to out of control and still have control of the race car," Nemechek said after taking the starting spot for Sunday's Banquet 400 with a lap of 180.156 mph.

Nemechek, whose pole last week was his first since October 2000, ended the drought at Talladega. He finished seventh in the race, leaving him 24th in the series standings.

Evernham Motorsports teammates Kasey Kahne and Jeremy Mayfield were the closest to him Friday. Rookie Kahne turned a lap of 179.253. Mayfield, fastest of the 10 drivers racing for the Nextel Cup championship, ran 179.188.

Another title contender, Jimmie Johnson, was next at 179.045, followed by Bobby Labonte at 178.891, Greg Biffle at 178.453, and contenders Ryan Newman, the defending race winner, at 178.424, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. at 178.389.

Busch was 22nd in qualifying. Third-place Jeff Gordon was a disappointing 30th.

Among the other contenders, Elliott Sadler was 11th, Matt Kenseth 15th, Mark Martin 18th and Tony Stewart 20th.

• Motor Racing Network will follow NBC's lead and add a delay to its NASCAR radio broadcasts beginning with Sunday's race at Kansas Speedway.

NBC placed a five-second delay on its NASCAR telecasts Thursday after Earnhardt used a vulgarity during a postrace TV interview last weekend. MRN, which broadcasts all but a handful of the Nextel Cup races each year, said Friday it will go to a seven-second delay.

BUSCH SERIES: Paul Menard won his first NASCAR Busch Series pole, edging Kahne by two-thirds of a second.

Menard took the pole for the Mr. Goodcents 300 with a top lap of 176.062 mph in a Chevrolet. Kahne - going for his third straight pole - drove his Dodge around the 1 1/2-mile tri-oval at 175.684.

Menard, whose best previous start was eighth in April at Talladega, won the pole in his eighth start in a car co-owned by Chance 2 Motorsports and Dale Earnhardt Inc.

"We definitely had all the tools there," Menard said. "It was just kind of up to (crew chief) Tony Gibson and myself to try to put all the pieces of the puzzle together."

Chevrolets took eight of the top 10 spots, with Kahne and David Stremme - starting ninth in a Dodge - the only exceptions.

Robby Gordon and Kyle Busch will start on the second row today, followed in the top 10 by Martin Truex Jr., Ron Hornaday, Blake Feese, Mike Bliss, Stremme and David Green.

FORMULA ONE: A typhoon forecast to hit Suzuka, Japan, today forced organizers to abandon the regular qualifying format for the Japanese Grand Prix.

Qualifying will be held before Sunday's race, the first time Saturday qualifying has been canceled for a Formula One event.

Typhoon Ma-on, meaning horse saddle in Cantonese, was near Japan's southern island of Okinawa on Friday evening, packing winds up to 112 mph. It is expected to dump as much as 16 inches of rain in central Japan - where Suzuka is located - this morning, the Meteorological Agency said. After Friday's practice in steady and heavy rain, race organizers and the International Automobile Federation shifted both the prequalifying and qualifying to Sunday morning. The race will be held in the afternoon.