Newman’s top-spot was his second of the season and 20th of his brief Cup career. It was also his third in a row at AMS. If you’re keeping score at home (and we know you do) his PPP (Phenominal Pole Percentage) is now up to .238. Ryan will be joined on the front-row by Brian Vickers, who equaled his career-best starting spot today. He had the outside pole last year at Rockingham in October and Phoenix in November.
#88-Dale Jarrett (6th) has his best starting spot since he lined up 6th at Talladega last October.
Welcome Back….Todd Bodine makes his first start of the season (it wasn’t that long ago we had more Bodine’s than we knew what to do with), and Andy Belmont makes his first Cup start since the Southern 500 in September of 1992! He started 32nd and finished 35th that day (he made 8 starts that year, btw), but he’ll always be remember in this corner as the driver who brought a car to the Lehigh Valley Medical Center when Davey Allison was recovering from that horrible accident at Pocono in July of 1992 so that the doctors could help fit him with a cast on his shattered hand in order to start at Talladega the next race.
STREAKIN….Ryan Newman has 9 Top-10 starts in the last 10 races.
44 cars on hand…the lone Trouble Train occupant is Morgan Shepherd. Provisionals went to: Johnny Sauter, Joe Ruttman (I trust that team has a pit crew this week), Andy Belmont, Kirk Shelmerdine, and Andy Hillenburg.
This is a fast place (as though you needed to be reminded of that when the pole speed here is 5 mph faster than Daytona was)….and you’ve gotta worry when the spread from the Pole to the end of the field is over 20 mph. Couple that with a fairly narrow groove and we could be in for a lot of excitement come Sunday.(StockCarFans.Com Nextelcup Newsletter)(3-14-2004)