KANSAS CITY, KAN. ? Michael Waltrip doesn’t hate Kansas Speedway, though no one would blame him if he did.

After starting near the front of both the Busch Series and Winston Cup races at Kansas Speedway last season and not finishing either, Waltrip would be satisfied if his No. 99 car made it out in one piece this weekend.

Despite those stinging reminders, Friday Waltrip posted his second straight pole victory at Kansas Speedway. In fact, he broke the track record, turning a fast lap of 30.275 seconds at 178.365 miles per hour in qualifying for today’s Busch Series Mr. Goodcents 300.

“If you’re going to race, you’re going to wreck,” Waltrip said. “I just enjoy racing here. Both days I wrecked. But that doesn’t have anything to do with how we were performing, or how we’re going to do tomorrow. We’ve put all that behind us.”

Now he hopes to turn his back on the competition in today’s race.

That won’t be easy, as 23 other drivers also broke Waltrip’s year-old qualifying mark of 173.831 Friday.

“I don’t really know how that happened,” Waltrip said. “Usually when you let a track sit a year, it should take speed out, not put it back in. Our 2003 cars are better than the 2002’s, so that probably makes a bunch of difference.”

NASCAR driver Michael Waltrip climbs out of his Chevrolet after he won the pole for the Mr. Goodcents 300. Waltrip turned in a lap in a speed of 178.365 Friday at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kan.

Second-best qualifier Kasey Kahne turned a 177.743 mph lap in 30.381 seconds.

“I think the track is definitely better this year,” said Kahne, who participated in testing a few weeks back at the Speedway. “There’s a lot that’s out, but the test really did help us. We still started pretty close to where we were, and we weren’t too far off today.

“The wind was about the same, but the weather was a lot hotter when we were here testing. The track has picked up a lot of speed with the cooler weather.”

David Green, who finished third, said his and Kahne’s laps combined could have beaten Waltrip.

But Waltrip, who hasn’t won a Busch race from the pole position since 1990, said he hoped to continue his current winning streak — he won last weekend’s Winston race at Talladega — today at the Speedway.

“Guys went out this morning and made some really fast laps, way faster than I had in practice,” Waltrip said. “I knew that if the track would hold there would be a lot of grip, and it would stick. I just went for it and got it.”