DOVER, Del. --- Jimmie Johnson was one of six drivers who spent two days testing tires at Dover International Speedway in August. So was Juan Pablo Montoya.

The two turned that advantage into fast laps during pole qualifying for the AAA 400, claiming the top two spots Friday and sparking a debate about whether drivers in the Chase for the Championship should be allowed to get extra track time during the playoffs.

NASCAR prohibits testing at its tracks during the season, but it does allow the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. to use drivers in its tire-selection process. In fact, Johnson personally picked the tires for Sunday's race (2 p.m., ABC-Ch. 6).

Johnson said extra laps helped his No. 48 Chevrolet. But after dominating the race at the one-mile oval in May, he said his team didn't make any changes to the car despite the new tires.

"Running laps never hurts," he said. "From an engineering standpoint we gained data. That's important. There's no doubt it's helpful for me. There's no doubt there's an advantage to it. Everybody's got an opinion on it. They (Goodyear) contact us and we came up there and did the test."

The series has an understanding to not use Chase drivers during the testing process for the final 10 tracks.

Goodyear, however, picks the playoff drivers because they can get better information from them.

For Ryan Newman, it's all part of the game.

"They should be up there and maybe we'll gain the advantage down the road by testing at another track," said Newman, who came in third in qualifying. "Just because they tested here doesn't mean they're going to win the race."

Johnson was clocked at 157.356 mph; Montoya ran 156.699. They were among six drivers testing on the one-mile oval on Aug. 4-5. Kyle Busch, A.J. Allmendinger, David Stremme, Bobby Labonte and David Ragan also tested.

Montoya said he didn't use the tires picked by Johnson and Goodyear during the test. Because of that, he's not sure if he gained any real advantage.

"I knew when Jimmie ran those laps in practice, unless he made a big mistake we weren't going to beat him for the pole," Montoya said. "Most of the tire test was done by Jimmie. We made long runs to put rubber in the track. Did it help? We qualified third here the last time we were here, so I don't know."

David Reutimann qualified fifth, followed by Kasey Kahne in sixth, Jeff Gordon in seventh, Clint Bowyer in eighth, Sam Hornish Jr. in ninth and Paul Menard in 10th.