KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Mark Martin has another pole in his race to win the Chase.

Martin turned a lap of 175.758 mph on a cool, windy Friday on the 11/2-mile oval at Kansas Speedway, earning his career-best seventh pole of the season.

The 50-year-old will start on the front row with Dale Earnhardt Jr. in Sunday’s Price Chopper 400, the third of 10 races in the Chase for the championship.

“Mark still has the urge and the yearning to do it as if he were in his first season,” Earnhardt said.

“You see guys, their temperament seems to soften over time, but he seems just as excited about going around a racetrack as he did when he first strapped into a car.”

Martin has won five times this season and holds a 10-point lead over three-time defending Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, who qualified 11th.

“Have any of you ever stepped on a cat’s tail?” Martin said. “I have accidentally stepped on cat’s tail before. They make a noise and go really fast. When I stepped on the gas of that No. 5 car today, it was like stepping on a cat’s tail it had so much horsepower.”

Earnhardt, who hasn’t won since Michigan last year, gets his best starting position this season. Brad Keselowski qualified third.

The popular Earnhardt has struggled this season after switching crew chiefs, failing to win a race, finishing in the top 10 just three times.

“We needed that type of performance and have needed it for a long time,” he said. “It’s got the guys all excited and we’ll see how goes in (today’s) practice.”

Martin has been creating some drama — and the other drivers want a piece.

Sitting next to his older teammate after the race, Keselowski rubbed Martin’s jacket.

“I’m hoping some of that magic will rub off,” Keselowski said.

“There’s some magic dust falling,” Martin said, “that’s for sure.”

Five of the top 10 qualifiers are in the Chase.

Tony Stewart will start fifth, Kasey Kahne sixth, Jeff Gordon ninth. The other Chasers: Brian Vickers 12th, Juan Pablo Montoya 14th, Carl Edwards 17th, Denny Hamlin 22nd, Ryan Newman 30th, Greg Biffle 31st and Kurt Busch 39th.

Tongues were wagging Friday after NASCAR warned the two Hendrick Motorsports teams of Martin and Johnson that they came awfully close to failing the postrace inspection at Dover, Del., last Sunday.

“There was no room to breathe,” Sprint Cup director John Darby said. “Both cars passed inspection, or we would be having a whole different conversation with this.”

During the inspection, NASCAR found that the body of the cars came very close to exceeding allowed specifications.

Hendrick team officials were called in the next day to go over the measurements and NASCAR let them go with a warning:

“Don’t put it so close that your head’s in the guillotine and somebody is holding a lighter on the rope,” Darby said.