Forty-nine cars entered qualifying on Friday evening; due to NASCAR's qualifying procedure forty-three were allowed to race. Each driver ran two laps, with the starting order determined by the competitor's fastest times. Drivers who set their laps late in qualifying had an advantage because the track was at its coolest. Ryan Newman clinched the 39th pole position of his career, with a time of 29.140 seconds. He was joined on the grid's front row by his Penske Racing South teammate Kurt Busch, and was the second-to-last driver to record his lap. Sadler qualified third, Dale Earnhardt Jr. fourth, and Kenseth fifth. Hamlin, Rudd, Dave Blaney, Bobby Labonte and Stremme rounded out the top ten qualifiers. Jeff Green crashed in the second turn while on a lap and used a provisional to qualify. The six drivers who failed to qualify were Kevin Lepage, David Reutimann (who crashed on his lap) Waltrip (who lost control of his car in the second turn on his second qualifying lap, tearing off a front tire after hitting an inside wall and made contact with it a second time before stopping), Mike Bliss, Paul Menard and Ward Burton. After the qualifier, Newman said he felt pressure to achieve Penske's Racing South's first victory at Charlotte Motor Speedway: "He's only been trying here for like 20 years, so yeah it would be special. It's been something that weighs on the drivers and the teams". He also said he felt he could have recorded a faster lap time and was worried about teammate Kurt Busch's qualifying form.
