We beat the rain today at Bristol Motor Speedway, and it was Elliott Sadler who grabbed the Bud Pole for Sunday’s Food City 500 at the sweetest little half-miler on the planet. Sadler’s time of 15.022 (127.733 mph) was good enough for his 3rd career pole and first since he had the top-spot at Talladega in September of 2003. He becomes the fourth qualifier for next February’s Budweise Shootout.
Dave Blaney (2nd) will join Sadler on the front-row…..this is his best starting spot since he had the pole at Rockingham (we used to race there?) in February of 2003.
Five….count ’em….Five sets of ties today! We time out to a 1000th of a second, and almost 25% of the field is involved in duplicate times. Remember, ties are broken by Owner points.
Rusty Wallace (3rd) has his best starting spot since he was on the outside pole at Martinsville last October.
Travis Kvapil (5th) tied his career-best qualifying effor today. He also started 5th at Martinsville last October.
Jeff Green (6th) has his best starting spot since he lined up 3rd at Richmond last May.
Mike Wallace (22nd) has his best starting spot since he started 18th at Dover in June of 2003!
Stanton Barrett (23rd) has his best starting spot since he started 20th at Dover last June (only two races).
Hermie Sadler (35th) has his best starting spot since he qualified 31st at Martinsville last October (only five races).
STREAKIN….Ryan Newman has 12 Top-10 starts in a row.
Greg Biffle has 4 Top-10 starts in a row.
The dnq’s of the #7 (Robby Gordon) and #37 (Kevin Lepage) were crucial indeed. Starting next week we’ll use current year Owner points to determine who has to time into the field, and their misses will open the door to Jason Leffler, Mike Wallace, Bobby Labonte, and Ricky Rudd. While Bobby Labonte is eligible for a past-champions provisional, it’ll be interesting to see how this shakes out for the other drivers.(StockCarFans.Com)(4-2-2005)
