Compton completes season sweep of Talladega poles

By Stephen Thomas, CNNSI.com
October 20, 2001
11:53 AM EDT (1553 GMT)

TALLADEGA, Ala. -- It's really too bad that qualifying at Talladega doesn't seem to mean much. If it did -- and there are a whole bunch of drivers who are quick to tell you it doesn't -- then the fact that Stacy Compton won the pole for Sunday's EA Sports 500 might actually be significant.

Sure, you can point to the fact that this is Compton's second consecutive pole at Talladega Superspeedway (and the second of his career). But then, in the next breath, you could also mention that he went on to finish dead last after he took his other pole in April. Remember, this is Talladega, the place where it's not uncommon to see cars shuffled from first to last in less than a lap.

But, then, somebody has to win the thing, so why not Compton? And why not Dodge, which, with Compton's lap, completed a season-sweep of poles in restrictor-plate races. Bobby Hamilton, who won the spring race at Talladega, will start second, while Sterling Marlin will start third.

"Starting up front isn't critical, like it is at Martinsville," Compton said. "But right now in my career, a pole is as good as a win. In reality, it doesn't matter where you start here, but [the pole] means a whole lot. Hopefully we won't go from first to worst like we did last time."

Nevertheless, the consensus is that qualifying at Talladega is a distant second to just making the race. Ken Schrader said he was just looking to skate through Friday and make it to Sunday. He can breathe easy, having qualified 28th. Mark Martin said it doesn't matter where you start the race, which means that his 14th spot shouldn't present much of a problem. Tony Stewart has said he'll spend a majority of the race riding around in the back before he starts racing, so starting 37th is cool.

"We're going to be running over each other trying to get to the back," said Hamilton, who held the pole for most of the afternoon until Compton knocked him off with just one car to go. "Fans can't tell we're going backwards, they just think we're racing."

But as meaningless as qualifying at Talladega might be, Friday's seemingly endless qualifying session -- it took the 45 cars almost three hours to complete -- wasn't without some drama. Kyle Petty, who had failed to qualify for each of the last three races, will start eighth Sunday. It is just the second top-10 start of the year for Petty.

Stewart, who earlier in the day had a run-in with NASCAR officials concerning his unwillingness to wear an approved head-and-neck restraint system (eventually, he knuckled under and wore the Hutchens device), was forced to use his fourth provisional of the year. And Robby Gordon, two weeks after missing the race at Charlotte and driving for his future with Richard Childress Racing, was forced to take a provisional.