LAS VEGAS — Jeff Gordon, preparing for his final start at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, won the pole for Sunday’s race — his first career pole at the track.

It’s the 79th pole of Gordon’s career and leaves just Kansas and Kentucky as the only active tracks where he’s yet to win a pole. Kentucky is the only track on the circuit where Gordon has not won a race.

The four-time champion is retiring at the end of this season. Gordon turned a lap at 194.679 mph in his Chevrolet and gave a hard pump of his arm into the air as he climbed from the car.

He said he was conservative in the second round of qualifying, but went for it in the final round.

“I knew that if we were going to win the pole, you have to be fully committed and just go for it,” he said. “I drove it down in there and I may have come off it a tiny bit, but it wasn’t much at all. And it stuck so good. That was fun.”

Gordon also won the pole for the season-opening Daytona 500, but he crashed at the end of that race. He was one of 13 drivers who didn’t make a qualifying attempt last week at Atlanta because their cars did not clear inspection in time.