Talladega, AL (Best E Casino) - Jeff Gordon won the pole and the race in Phoenix last Sunday and today captured the pole for Sunday's Aaron's 499 Nextel Cup race at the Talladega Superspeedway. The No.24 Hendrick Motorsports driver circled the 2.66-mile superspeedway in 49.857 seconds (192.069 m.p.h.).
The pole victory was Gordon's first at Talladega, third of the season and 60th of his "Cup" career. The pole win moves Gordon into sole possession of fourth place all-time. Richard Petty holds the all-time mark with 126 pole wins.
"We didn't make any qualifying runs and I expected some guys to beat us," said a surprised Gordon. "What a great start to this season we have had with this Dupont Chevrolet team...we'll try to take advantage of this starting position."
Starting alongside Gordon will be David Gilliland who also posted a time of 49.857 seconds. He will start second because in the case of a tie, owners points determine the winner.
Denny Hamlin (49.992) and Sterling Marlin (50.130) will make up row two.
Other drivers of note and their qualifying positions: Jimmie Johnson (8th), Kyle Busch (13th), Carl Edwards (16th), Matt Kenseth (17th), Juan Montoya (24th), Tony Stewart (32nd), and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (36th).
Michael Waltrip failed for the eighth straight time to make the race.
The Talladega Superspeedway was built on a soybean field located next to a couple of abandoned World War II airport runways and opened in September 1969. The 2.66-mile circuit, with it's 33-degree banking, holds the fastest qualifying mark in NASCAR history (Bill Elliott's 212.809 m.p.h. in April 1987) and the fastest 500-mile race in Winston Cup history when Mark Martin won the DieHard 500 in two hours, 39 minutes, 18 seconds in May 1997.
Although both Daytona and Talladega are "restrictor-plate" tracks they are very different "beasts." Drivers say that Daytona is a "handling" track and Talladega is a "horsepower" track.
That might be because the banking at Talladega is steeper than Daytona (33- degrees vs. 31-degrees) but more likely is because the straightaways are much longer. At Talladega the front straightaway is 500 feet longer while the backstretch is 400 feet longer.
The added distance allows drivers to reach the very top end of their power curve and those with the most horsepower have a distinct advantage.
Unlike at Phoenix where qualifying was not particularly important, at Talladega, qualifying will be a perfect indicator of who has the most horsepower. In 170 events at both Daytona and Talladega, the race winner has come out of the first two rows a total of 104 times (61.1%).
In last year's Aaron's 499, Johnson edged Stewart by 0.120 seconds for the victory. Hendrick Motorsports has won the last three Aaron's 499 races (Johnson once, Gordon twice). They have also won five of the last six Nextel Cup events.
The race is scheduled to drop the green flag on Sunday at 2 p.m. (et).
