It's the 68th career pole for the four-time stock car series champion, who was third in the standings.

Series leader Jimmie Johnson, going for an unprecedented fourth consecutive series title, qualified 12th at Texas Motor Speedway.

Mark Martin, who was second 184 points behind, will start seventh on Sunday.

Mathematically, Martin and Gordon still have a chance to win the NASCAR title.

The reality with three races left?

"We've still got a great battle going for second in points," Gordon said. "If for some crazy reason those guys had trouble, we've got to make sure we capitalize on them. Our focus right now is winning races, and trying to get to second in points."

Johnson's closest chasers are his Hendrick Motorsports teammates. But Johnson takes a comfortable 184-point lead over Martin into Sunday's race, with Gordon eight points further back.

Martin, already a season runner-up four times, is facing the realistic possibility of being in that spot again. His deficit increased by 66 points after an airborne crash with two laps to go at Talladega last week.

"Definitely no heartbreak whatsoever. But Talladega did rub ... I would rather go down fighting than flipping," Martin said. "I didn't take this job to go try and get a championship trophy. I took this job, you know why, and doggone, it has worked out pretty good. We have been in a position; it still could happen. The race is still on for the top six positions."

Except Johnson needs only to average a 10th-place finish over the last three races to clinch the championship. Johnson has an average finish of 3.4 in the seven Chase for the championship races so far, finishing top 10 in all of them.