MARTINSVILLE, Va. - Jeff Gordon insists confidence from past success at Martinsville Speedway is his only advantage on the trickiest track in stock car racing.

There's no secret formula or strategy. Only results.

"It's nice when you come to a track like Martinsville and you've got confidence in your driving and the team has confidence in setting up the car," Gordon said Friday after winning his third straight pole at the track.

Gordon will not only start first Sunday in the Advance Auto Parts 500, courtesy of a lap at 93.502 mph, but he'll be seeking his third consecutive victory at the track and sixth overall.

While starting out with a past setup as a baseline, Gordon's team used two hours of practice to fine tune his Chevrolet.

"We came with our basic setup that we sat on the pole here the last time with and we had to make some adjustments," Gordon said. "We tweaked on it and at the end of practice, I felt like we hit on some things."

He didn't have to wait long to see that it worked. Going out second and with 42 cars following him, Gordon set a pace that everyone chased and no one matched, earning his 47th pole and fifth on the 0.526-mile oval.

"I took off and the car did everything I really wanted it to do," he said. "I couldn't ask for much more than I got out of the car."

Jamie McMurray took the outside of the front row, turning a lap at 93.239 in a Dodge. Ryan Newman was third, also in a Dodge, at 93.102, He was followed by Dale Earnhardt Jr., whose lap came at 93.015 in a Chevy.

The pole is Gordon's first of the year - and first since he won it here last fall. Apart from changes in tires and other minor things, consistency combined with past success to make it simpler, he said.

"The track doesn't change that much from race to race and year to year," he said. "It's a little bit easier to get back into the swing of things, back into that groove. It's just one of those tracks."

Several drivers routinely complain about Martinsville's narrow, paper-clip shape, the tall curbs that form the inside of the turns and the rugged beating and banging that typifies every race.

McMurray, though, has quickly come to love the track, a feeling only enhanced when he had a productive test session a few weeks back. That success had him eager to get in the car and run some laps on Friday.

"I woke up at 4:30 in the morning excited to go," he said. "This is a fun race track. It's different than anywhere else we go."

Newman also has developed an affinity for the track, and has learned the best way to go fast is by slowing down entering the sharp turns.

"I think it's the only place where you're on the brakes more than you're on the gas," he said. "That's what makes it tough. Nobody wants to go fast by hitting the brakes, but sometimes you have to."

Kevin Harvick and Ward Burton will start in the third row, followed by points leader Kurt Busch and Jimmie Johnson in the fourth. Elliott Sadler and Jeremy Mayfield completed the top 10.

Sadler, a Virginian coming off a victory two weeks ago in Texas, said he was more nervous than he's ever been before making his laps.

"I think it was because I knew I had a good car and I've never qualified well here," he said. "I've just been worried to death."