KANSAS CITY, KAN. ? Chad Chaffin has found his luck at Kansas Speedway.

He hopes it doesn’t run out today.

The 34-year-old Smyrna, Tenn., native took the pole for today’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series O’Reilly Auto Parts 250, recording the fastest lap ever at the Speedway for the series when he turned a 166.323 mph lap on his first of two spins around the 1.5-mile tri-oval Friday.

“Right now it seems that when we’re running at our best, our luck is at our worst,” said Chaffin, who is tied for 11th in the series point standings. “This weekend we just need to have a real strong run, and when our truck is capable of running in the top five, we need to be able to take advantage of that.”

Chaffin, whose best finish was a third-place effort three years ago, certainly had his truck running right Friday.

“My truck was awesome, my crew chief had more faith in it than I did,” said Chaffin, who finished fifth in both of Friday’s practice sessions. “I didn’t think it could go that fast, but he was just pumped. After we laid down that lap we all did a double check. It was a pretty stout lap.”

Chaffin’s Dickies Racing Dodge teammate Bill Lester followed him by nabbing second for today’s 1 p.m. start with a lap at 164.429 mph.

“We’ve just got great trucks,” Chaffin said. “All three teams (Chaffin, Lester and owner Bobby Hamilton) are clicking about as well as they can, and this pole’s big for us.

Tony Kanaan of Brazil laughs with his crew before the start of practice at Kansas Speedway. Kanaan is the IRL series points leader going into Sunday's Indy 300 at Kansas City, Kan.

“Nobody’s going to remember down the road that we sat on the pole, but it’s an indication that we’ve got our program going in the right direction.”

Jon Wood qualified third, but will have to move to the back of the field because he switched engines between practice sessions.

“That’s always frustrating,” Wood said. “The only advantage to this is that we get a good pit stall.”

Chaffin has had his share of recent frustrations. Two races ago he started second at Memphis and was strong early, but his engine failed on lap 76 and he finished 28th.

“We’ve had trucks capable of top-five finishes, but we haven’t done that,” said Chaffin, who topped Jason Leffler’s 165.812 mph lap from last year. “We got to finish things on those days when we have a top-five truck.”

• IRL practice: Tomas Scheckter had the fastest lap Friday in practice for Sunday’s Kansas Indy 300 at 218.264 mph. Ganassi teammate Scott Dixon, who leads the circuit with three wins, had the second-fastest time at 217.739 mph. Points leader Tony Kanaan was close behind at 217.661 mph.