DARLINGTON, S.C. - Dale Earnhardt Jr. isn't a bit surprised by Kasey Kahne's fast start.

"No, not really," Earnhardt said Friday after the 23-year-old rookie beat out Junior for the pole at Darlington Raceway. "Kasey is a great race driver."

Earnhardt pointed out that Kahne's background in U.S. Auto Club short track racing is one reason for the rookie's quick success in NASCAR's Nextel Cup series.

"He compares to Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart," Earnhardt said. "But that's kind of his background. Those drivers seem to come into this sport and do well right off the bat.

"Obviously, he's gotten into a great race car and a great race team and a great race team owner in Ray Evernham. ... If you put a guy in those cars who can get the job done, they're going to run up front."

That's just what Kahne has done for most of this budding season.

Since an engine failure stopped him in the season-opening Daytona 500 - a race Earnhardt won - Kahne has finished second, losing by inches to defending series champion Matt Kenseth at Rockingham, second at Las Vegas and third at Atlanta.

No other driver in NASCAR's modern era, dating to 1972, has had three top-five finishes in his first four starts.

Now he has two poles to go with the top fives and will start from the front in Sunday's Carolina Dodge Dealers 400.

"I've always loved qualifying," said Kahne, whose fast lap Friday was 171.716 mph. "You have to really get up and got for it, so I've always enjoyed it. That car was just perfect, and it felt like we made a perfect lap. But I am surprised. We weren't expecting to get two poles already this season."

This one came on the treacherous 1.366-mile, egg-shaped oval made even trickier by the installation of the new SAFER barriers on the outside wall in all four turns.

The steel and foam barriers, designed to cushion the impact of a crash, extend out from the concrete walls about 30 inches. That's not much at most tracks, but it has narrowed the already tight Darlington turns considerably.

Several drivers bounced off the barriers, including two-time Daytona 500 champion Michael Waltrip in qualifying and Ryan Newman in practice.

"It's always been a tough track since I've been coming here," said Kahne, who also qualified second to 18-year-old rookie Kyle Busch earlier in the day in the Busch series time trials. "Now it's a little tougher. I held my breath a bit."

Earnhardt, coming off a win last Sunday in Atlanta, came closest to knocking Kahne off the pole with a lap of 171.154.

"We were nowhere near as fast as Kasey," Earnhardt said. "I'm happy we just keep improving here."

His best previous start in eight tries at Darlington was 10th in 2000.

Even though he has yet to win a pole this year, Earnhardt is off to a better start than Kahne, with two victories and a fifth-place finish in the first four races.

He goes into Sunday's race third in the season standings, 33 points ahead of Kahne and trailing only leader Kenseth and runner-up Stewart.

Newman, who had won two of four poles this season and six of the last 10, wound up a disappointing sixth with a lap of 170.792.

"Kasey ran a really good lap and I don't know if we could have beat that, but we should have been closer," Newman said. "I messed up in turn 2. I got too low and just about stuck it in the fence."

Greg Biffle (171.083), Kurt Busch (171.023) and surprising Derrike Cope (170.910) also beat Newman on Friday. It is Cope's first top-10 starting position since taking his only career pole in 1998.

Rounding out the top 10 were Newman's Penske Racing South teammate Rusty Wallace at 170.348, Stewart at 170.094, six-time Darlington winner Gordon at 170.083 and Elliott Sadler at 170.053.

Ricky Craven, who beat Busch by inches in a fender-banging finish here last March, qualified 36th at 166.896.

"We'll just have to do like we did last year," Craven said. "We started 31st last year and that didn't prevent us from winning."

Kenseth, another time-two winner in the first four races, qualified 15th.

AP-ES-03-20-04 0421EST