Jeff Gordon won the Nextel Cup Series Bud Pole for the Dover 400, lapping Dover International Speedway in 23.053 seconds at 156.162 mph. Jeremy Mayfield holds the trackqualifying record of 22.288 seconds, 161.522 mph – set June 4, 2004.
This is Gordons 55th career Bud Pole in 465 Nextel Cup Series races. He moved into a tie with Bill Elliott for sixth all-time on the Bud Pole winners list.
This is Gordons 14th consecutive year to score a Bud Pole, every season since his full-time career began in 1993. He ended a 47-race streak without a Bud Pole the longest of his career.
Gordon became the 13th different Bud Pole winner in 2006. This is his 13th top-10 start in 2006.
This is Gordons third Bud Pole and 18th top-10 start in 28 Nextel Cup Series race at Dover International Speedway, but his first Bud Pole here since June 1996.
Gordon became the third different Bud Pole winner in the past eight races at Dover International Speedway. Ryan Newman had three Bud Poles and Jeremy Mayfield two since 2002. Qualifying was canceled twice in the eight-race period.
Scott Riggs posted the second-quickest qualifying lap of 23.068 seconds, 156.060 mph and will join Gordon on the front row for the Dover 400. It is his fourth top-10 start this season, Riggs had not started better than 15th in his previous five races at Dover.
This is the 11th Bud Pole for Chevrolet in 2006. Dodge has 12 Bud Poles and Ford has four. Qualifying was canceled at Bristol.
Matt Kenseth (third) posted his fifth top-10 start in 16 races at Dover. Kenseth had just eight top-10 starts in the first 22 races of the season, but has posted four in the past six races.
Ryan Newman (fourth), who started 38th in his career-first Dover race (June 2002), has posted nine top-10 starts in 10 races here all top-fives. This is only qualifying effort that did not result in a front-row starting position for Newman since September 2002 when he started fourth in his second race here. His other non-front row starts were when qualifying was canceled in September 2003 (fifth) and again in June 2005 (fourth).
Joe Nemechek (fifth) posted his ninth top-10 start in 25 races at Dover. It is also his eighth top-10 start of 2006 but just his second in the past 11 races.
Reed Sorenson (seventh) was the highest qualifying rookie and posted his career-best qualifying effort.
David Ragan (37th) qualified for his career-first Nextel Cup race. He became the 86th driver to attempt to qualify this season and the 72nd to compete in 2006.(NASCAR Statistical Services)(9-22-2006)
