Johnson drives to the Daytona 500 pole

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Jimmie Johnson let new teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. enjoy the limelight for a few hours and then grabbed it back Sunday, winning the pole position for the Daytona 500.

Johnson, the reigning NASCAR Sprint Cup champion who won the 500 two years ago, fought off gusty winds to post a lap of 187.075 mph in his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet and secure the first starting spot.

Johnson declined to call himself the favorite for next Sunday’s 50th running of the 500, the series’ season opener. But “it certainly does put us in a great situation,” he said. “We know we have the fastest single car.”

Driver-team owner Michael Waltrip, a two-time Daytona 500 winner, qualified second in a Toyota Camry at 186.734 mph.

He’ll start next to Johnson on the front row at the 2.5-mile Daytona International Speedway.

In fact, three of the five fastest speeds were turned in by Toyota drivers -- Waltrip, his teammate David Reutimann and Dave Blaney -- as Toyota starts its second year in the Cup series.

Johnson, 32, finished third Saturday night when Earnhardt won the Budweiser Shootout exhibition race here -- his inaugural race with the Hendrick team.

Earnhardt then posted the 15th-quickest speed in qualifying and Johnson followed with his second Daytona 500 pole. The El Cajon, Calif., native won his first in 2002, his rookie year in the Cup series.

Only the top two spots for the 500 were locked in Sunday under the race’s unique format for setting its 43-car field.

The remaining cars will be split into two groups, and each group will hold a 150-lap qualifying race Thursday. The top 41 cars from those two races will fill out the starting grid for the 500.

The front row of Johnson and Waltrip, while featuring two former 500 winners, also had an ignominious ring to it because both were at the center of recent cheating scandals in 500 qualifying.

Johnson’s crew chief, Chad Knaus, was suspended from Daytona and three other races two years ago after NASCAR officials found unauthorized aerodynamic changes made to his Chevy. Johnson won the race anyway.

And last year, Waltrip was docked a then-record 100 points and his former crew chief was suspended after officials discovered his engine had been doctored with an illegal fuel additive.

A chastened Waltrip publicly apologized, then missed several races because his Toyotas weren’t fast enough.

“There was a question a few months back as to what would happen to us, but we survived,” said Waltrip, 44. “I’m the happiest guy in Daytona.”

Several of the open-wheel racing drivers who have migrated to NASCAR had respectable speeds among the 53 entrants.

Patrick Carpentier was 11th, Jacques Villeneuve 17th and AJ Allmendinger 19th.

Boris Said, a part-time Cup driver from Carlsbad, Calif., who won the pole for the summer race here in 2006, again showed speed with the ninth-fastest lap.

David Gilliland, a Riverside native who won the pole a year ago, was 20th this year in his Yates Racing Ford.

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james.peltz@latimes.com