MARTINSVILLE -- It only lasted seconds, but Jimmie Johnson's qualifying effort provided a needed pick-me-up for he and his team.

Johnson circled Martinsville Speedway in less than 20 seconds to win the pole with a lap of 96.736 mph. It's his first career pole at this track and ninth in his career.

His effort comes after he suffered a flat tire on the first lap at Bristol last weekend, later hit the wall and finished 30th. He dropped out of the points lead. Johnson then crashed Wednesday during a tire test at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

"We just had some bad luck,'' Johnson said. "Then we came here and really haven't talked about Martinsville too much. We haven't put any more pressure on ourselves. We came in and had a great practice and a great qualifying effort.''

Johnson will be joined on the front row by Roush Racing's Jamie McMurray. This has not been an easy season for McMurray, 24th in the points. He says his team has tried to run the same setups as teammates Mark Martin, Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth, but it hasn't worked.

"The cars just don't feel good to me,'' McMurray said.

He and crew chief Jimmy Fennig met this week with car owner Jack Roush and decided to go their own way in setups.

Defending series champion Tony Stewart, who led 530 of the 1,000 laps run here last season, starts third. Ryan Newman and Kasey Kahne complete the top five.

Sterling Marlin, Elliott Sadler, defending race winner Jeff Gordon, Busch and Biffle complete the top 10. Tony Raines, making his first start for Hall of Fame Racing after Terry Labonte drove the first five races, qualified 12th.

"I was more nervous getting into the car for qualifying than I have in a long time,'' said Raines, whose last race was a Busch event in November.

J.J. Yeley was the top rookie qualifier. Most of the rookie crop had never raced here. He qualified 18th.

Back to work?

South Boston native Ward Burton is looking to drive again and is willing to consider rides not in the Nextel Cup series.

Burton last drove in 2004 and skipped the 2005 season when he couldn't land a quality ride. Burton, the older brother of Jeff Burton, said he only wanted to drive in the Cup series. The 2002 Daytona 500 champion has changed his mind. "I'm being a little more open-minded about it,'' Burton said.

Burton, who won five Cup races in a career that spanned 1994-2004, says he's not worried about missing a year.

Charity event

Bobby Hamilton will be a part of a charity event May 23 at the NASCAR Speedpark in Concord, N.C. The event will benefit the American Cancer Society and Victory Junction Gang Camp.

Hamilton announced two weeks ago that he was sitting out the rest of the Craftsman Truck series because of treatment for cancer in his neck. Hamilton has received treatments the past two weeks.

Testing: Part II

Goodyear is planning to do a second tire test at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Dale Jarrett and Kevin Harvick will test there Tuesday.

Complete lineup in Scoreboard, page 6.