Juan Pablo Montoya's contribution to the NASCAR highlight reel so far this season was his crash into a jet dryer in the season-opening Daytona 500.
Montoya finally had a bright spot that didn't involve explosions and raging fuel fires.
He turned a lap of 176.043 m.p.h. Saturday to win the pole at Pocono Raceway. The winless Montoya won his first pole since April 2011 in Richmond, Virginia. He hasn't won a race since Aug. 8, 2010 at Watkins Glen.
The pole was a needed lift for Montoya and his No. 42 Earnhardt Ganassi Racing team. He's 21st in the standings and has yet to drive to a top-five finish. He only has two top 10s and has continued a string of mediocre seasons since qualifying for the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship in 2009.
Montoya admitted he was "shocked" he beat out Pocono qualifying stars such as Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano and Kasey Kahne to lead the field in Sunday's 400-mile race.
"We know we're working in the right direction, we know we're working hard, we feel the cars are getting a little better," Montoya said, "but to go out there and get a pole ... I just went through the hauler and all the engineers, they're all happy and laughing. I'm used to long faces, a lot of long faces, a lot of stressful faces. We needed some-thing like this as a company. This is big for us."
Hamlin turned a lap of 175.795 and qualified second. It's his 12th top-10 start in 14 career Pocono races.
Paul Menard, Kahne and Marcos Ambrose round out the top five.
Points leader Dale Earnhardt Jr. starts eighth.
Montoya joined NASCAR in 2007 after a successful career in open wheel that included an Indianapolis 500 victory and a Monaco Grand Prix win.
