#42-Jamie McMurray celebrated his option pickup by owner Chip Ganassi by winning the pole for the Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono Raceway. The pole is McMurray’s first of 2005 and 2nd of his career and puts him in the 2006 Budweiser Shootout [in either the #42 or the #6]. McMurray’s last [and only] pole came at Homestead in November 2003, 55 races ago, he finished 9th. The rest of the top 5 are: #97-Kurt Busch, #6-Mark Martin, #12-Ryan Newman and #21-Ricky Rudd. #20-Tony Stewart has the highest starting Chevy at 6th. Points leader, #48-Jimmie Johnson will start 9th. #8-Dale Earnhardt Jr. starts in the back, 38th. #99-Bobby Gerhart qualified the car for Carl Edwards 41st, so Edwards won’t have to fall back to far on Sunday. #27-Kirk Shelmerdine makes his first race of the year. #32-Bobby Hamilton Jr. was the best of the non top-35 teams and will start 27th. Missing the race are: #89-Morgan Shepherd, #92-Hermie Sadler, #00-Carl Long and #52-Derrike Cope. Looks like only two drivers were faster on their 2nd laps: #92-Sadler [up a tad, #9-Kahne [up 3.6mph]. #52-Cope spun and hit the turn 2 wall on first lap, then drove on and then hit the turn 3 wall hard, Cope walked away ok. #15-Waltrip scrubbed the wall in turn 2, but still turned in a good lap. #00-Long got loose, spun and smacked the wall in turn 1 on his first lap and drove it to the garage. #41-Mears spun off turn 3 on his first qualifying lap but didn’t hit anything and took the car to the garage.
For practice speeds, pole progresson, qualifying speeds, starting lineup and links, see Jayski’s Pocono Qualifying/Practice/Starting Grid Page.(7-23-2005)
