Portland, Ore. ? After Cristiano da Matta went the first 64 races of his CART career without a pole, he’ll start today from the top spot for the second time in eight days.

Da Matta, who won last week’s Monterey Grand Prix from the pole, turned the fastest lap in qualifying Saturday for the G.I. Joe’s 200. His Toyota-powered Lola circled the Portland International Raceway road course in 58.679 seconds, at 120.8 mph.

Christiano Da Matta of brazil celebrates after winning the pole for today's G.I. Joe's 200 CART race in Portland, Ore.

Kenny Brack will start second, followed by his Ganassi teammate Bruno Junqueira. Alex Tagliani vastly improved his position during the session, going from 10th-fastest to seventh and finally fourth.

A nice rivalry is developing this season between Brack and da Matta, who drives for Newman-Haas. Da Matta, who also had the fastest time in Friday’s provisional qualifying, already has won two races and has expanded his lead in the standings to seven points over Michel Jourdain Jr.

Brack, who had a series-best four victories last year, is looking for his first win this season.

“We’re still missing a little bit, but we’ll see tomorrow whether we can swing it around,” said Brack, who also started second behind da Matta last week and finished third. “The Target car is a very good car. It’s just not enough yet to beat Cristiano for the pole.”

Da Matta has six wins in three-plus season on the circuit, but his first pole didn’t come until last week at Laguna Seca. He’d started second five times before that.

“I’ve been very close many times,” he said. “I think we just didn’t change anything in the way we were working. We just came to two tracks where our cars ran really good.”

By starting in the front row, da Matta and Brack have a good chance of avoiding trouble on the most dangerous part of the track the opening chicane called the Festival Curves.

It’s an enticingly wide V-shaped bend that provides the best opportunity for passing on the track, but inevitably too many drivers try to squeeze through.