MARTINSVILLE, Va., April 12 (UPI) -- Jeff Gordon has discovered the best way to overcome personal adversity is to excel on the race track.
Gordon did that Friday when he won the pole for Saturday's NASCAR Winston Cup Virginia 500 at Martinsville Speedway.
Gordon drove his Chevrolet Monte Carlo to a fast lap of 94.181 miles per hour, well below Tony Stewart's track qualifying record of 95.371 mph set on Sept. 29, 2000.
It was Gordon's 41st career pole in 301 Winston Cup races. His most recent pole came at Bristol two races ago.
"The team just never gave up, they kept working throughout the whole practice, getting the car better and better," Gordon explained after running just 25th in Friday's practice session.
Gordon is the defending NASCAR Winston Cup champion but enters this race sixth in the standings after seven events. He also is dealing with the recent breakup of his marriage but is determined to rebound.
Gordon finished second to Matt Kenseth in last Monday's race at Texas Motor Speedway and is hoping to find his way into victory lane at the flat short track in southern Virginia.
"There's no doubt that did a whole lot for us," Gordon said of
the pole.
Another Chevrolet driver, Bobby Hamilton, starts on the outside
of the front row after a lap at 94.092 mph.
"This type of race you have to be pretty aggressive, but you can
actually space yourself out and stay in clean traffic a lot,"
Hamilton said.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. wil, start third despite spinning out after
his first qualification lap. Terry Labonte helped give
Chevrolet a sweep of the top four positions when he qualified
behind Earnhardt.
"This is the first time we've had a real short track car in a
while," Labonte said. "I knew the first time out we were going
to be good."
Rusty Wallace, the active leader with six victories on
Martinsville's 0.526-mile oval, rounded out the top five in a
Ford Taurus.
"That was a lot better than I thought we'd get," Wallace said
after his qualification lap. "The guys did a really good job
preparing the car. This is a new car and I'm real proud of
them.
"One thing we did was we went out and scuffed our tires for a
second time. We were worried we didn't get enough scuff on them,
so we did that a second time and I think that helped a little
bit. That, and our shock selection. We just kept fine-tuning it
and it helped us."
Bill Elliott, the pole winner last week at Texas, had the
fastest Dodge Intrepid with a sixth-place qualification run,
which included a scrape with the wall.
"That was fun," Elliott said. "The car is real good. I had to
give them a little excitement there on that second lap. I think
the second lap would have been faster, but the car just didn't
stick. The car is fine (after scraping the wall). We're just
breaking it in a little bit right now."
Chevy's Kevin Harvick was seventh and Tony Stewart was the
highest-qualified Pontiac Grand Prix and will start eighth.
"I'm pretty happy with that lap," Stewart said. "I knew I missed
the first one pretty big. I missed it in one and two, so I went
down in three and four and just kind of set up for the second
lap. But all in all, I'm pretty happy with that."
