Jamie McMurray has gone from winning the Daytona 500 to sitting on the pole in California.

After a whirlwind week of appearances and interviews as the champion of NASCAR's season opener and biggest race, McMurray got back into the cockpit of his No. 1 Chevrolet on Friday and qualified first with a lap of 183.744 mph at the 2-mile superspeedway in Fontana, Calif.

"I am so amazed at the week I've had, and then to come here to be able to be on the pole," McMurray said. "I really can't believe it. It's just pretty awesome."

McMurray captured his fourth career pole, his first at California, and will be joined on the front row by Earnhardt Ganassi teammate Juan Pablo Montoya, who ran a lap of 183.477 mph to qualify second.

Clint Bowyer qualified third in another Chevy, which has an engine also built by Earnhardt-Childress Racing, like the ones in McMurray and Montoya's cars.

Kasey Kahne was fourth in his No. 9 Ford, followed by Dave Blaney in a Toyota. The highest-qualifying Dodge was Sam Hornish Jr. in eighth.

Matt Kenseth, who won at California the past two Februarys, qualified 20th. Kenseth hasn't won a race since opening last season with victories at Daytona and California and this week changed crew chiefs.

Roush Fenway drivers have won the past five February races at California, with Kenseth winning three of the past four.

When McMurray got to the track Friday morning, he described it as "just a different feeling that I've ever had in the garage area."

He was feeling even better after he won the pole. "Getting in the car ... it was going to be easier than what I had to do Monday through Thursday. I was like, honestly, whew, I can't wait to get back to the race track so I can rest," McMurray said.

"It's just been so busy. I've been on such a high the last four days. And I don't think that'll go away if you happen to have a bad run because fortunately you always get to be the Daytona 500 champion."

The difficult part for Danica Patrick is still not knowing for sure how things are "supposed to feel" in a stock car and what is normal on the track.

"I really don't have any of those answers at this point," Patrick said. "It's only going to come from, in my experience, really having something good to go, 'Oh yes, I want that again. I know I can achieve it.' It just takes time."

Patrick gets another chance this weekend at California, in what originally was supposed to be her NASCAR Nationwide debut before she raced at Daytona and got caught up in a 12-car accident just past the halfway mark last Saturday. She went a week earlier than planned after finishing sixth in the ARCA race at Daytona.

Her goals this Saturday are simple: finish laps -- and the race. "Finishing is definitely always the goal," she said. "I just need laps. ... I'm probably going to be more surprised how I'm going to have to deal with the car sliding around for a majority of the run, and I need that to be a normal expectation for me that I deal with."

Unlike Daytona, Patrick goes to the 2-mile California superspeedway already with some race experience on the large oval. But that was five years ago in the IndyCar Series, and is really no comparison to the way she will have to drive this time.

"It's definitely a departure from being in an IndyCar here when you're glued to that white line," she said. "You never came off the white line any way, and you never lifted."

Patrick spent much of her practice time Friday adjusting to differences. She ran 16 laps in the opening session -- more than any other driver -- and her best lap of 169.591 mph was 37th.

She improved to 27th in the second session with a lap of 171.310 mph when she ran a field-high 35 laps.

"For me, really I don't feel necessarily so bothered by tracks as much as I do just getting comfortable with the car on the track," she said.

"I've driven around here flat-out on the white line before, I have no problem with that. But I need to feel the grip and I need to feel where the car is, so that's what we're working on."

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