#24-Jeff Gordon took the Bud Pole today at Talladega Superspeedway. Gordon and David Gilliland ran identical times…..to the thousandth of a second (49.857…..192.069 MPH), but since Gordon is waaaaay ahead of Gilliland in Owner Points, he gets the spot. This was the second pole in a row for Jeff, his 4th of the season, and the 60th of his Nextel Cup career. He’s now solo in 4th on the all time pole list and next up is Cale Yarborough…..ten ahead at 70. David Gilliland (2nd) has his best starting spot since he had the pole at Daytona in February. Sterling Marlin (4th) has his best starting spot since he qualified 3rd at Bristol in August of 2004! Ricky Rudd (5th) has his best starting spot since he had the outside pole at the 500 in February. Kenny Wallace (6th) has his best starting spot since he timed in 4th at Martinsville in October of 2003! Casey Mears (7th) has his best starting spot since he lined up 3rd at Lowe’s last October. David Ragan (10th) ties his career-best starting spot this weekend. He started 10th at Texas two weeks ago….but that race lined up by points since qualifying was stormed out. His previous best starting spot by time was 27th at Martinsville earlier this month. David Reutimann (14th) has his career-best starting spot this weekend. His previous best was 24th at Atlanta in March. Paul Menard (19th) tied his career-best starting position today. He also lined up 19th at Las Vegas in March. Dale Jarrett (43rd) uses his last Champions Provisional to make the field this week. He’ll need to time in from here on out or move into the Top-35 in Owner Points (he’s currently 37th, 64 markers out of 35th). STREAKIN….Jeff Gordon has 6 Top-5 starts in a row. Denny Hamlin has 5 Top-10 starts in a row. Jimmie Johnson has 5 Top-10 starts in the last 6 races. All kinda cryin’ about fast cars going home this week, but when you decide to make this an impound race, what else should you expect? Course, we really don’t know how fast some of those Trouble Train types were since its like we were running two different races. In any event, the TT included Michael Waltrip, Brian Vickers, Dave Blaney, A. J. Allmendinger, Ken Schrader, Mike Wallace, Kevin Lepage, John Andretti, and Mike Bliss. This is the first race that Dave Blaney has missed this season (and first for the Bill Davis car to be MIA since Atlanta in October of 2004), and the first race where we won’t have a #21 Woods Brothers car since we were here in April of 2000!(Stock Car Fans)(4-28-2007)
