Gordon reigns after rain to take Bristol pole

BRISTOL, Tenn. - As Jeff Gordon held court behind his transporter Friday afternoon, he told the hoard of reporters surrounding him how elated he was to be at a short track.

Two hours later, he showed them why.

	Jeff Gordon will look for his fifth Bristol victory Saturday.

Having not qualified in the top-10 in six weeks, Gordon came to Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend in somewhat of a qualifying slump. That all ended Friday, as Gordon sped to his second consecutive Bud Pole at the half-mile Bristol bullring, and his third pole of the year.

Gordon, whose 15.47-second lap at 124.034 mph marked the only circuit to break the 124-mph barrier, fell far short of Steve Park's track record of 126.370 mph.

"Awesome!" said an elated Gordon as his Bud Pole Award became official. "Man does that feel good. This is a great way to start the weekend off.

"It's nice coming to a place where you don't have to worry so much about aerodynamics. It wasn't by much. (Dale Earnhardt) Junior put up a heckuva lap."

Earnhardt, Jr., the 36th of 44 drivers to qualify, fell 12-thousandths of a second short of Gordon's quick lap. Gordon was unsure Junior's 123.937 mph effort would be beaten.

"I didn't know if we could beat him, but it was good enough for the pole. That's all that matters," said Gordon, who has 42-career Bud Poles in his 10 Winston Cup seasons. "We've been through a lot lately. We haven't qualified very good. We need momentum, so this is really good."

Much has been made of Gordon's victory drought, which now stands at a career-high 31 races. He points to poor qualifying efforts as a contributor.

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"When you qualify good like we have in past, you learn how to race from that position," Gordon said. "When you don't qualify well, you have to think about how you set the car up.

"You have to setup looser to run in traffic. There's so many things you're fighting against. That's something we're not used to. We've had to work through that this year. Qualifying up front is really important, more to our team than most teams out there.

"We usually qualify so much better than we are lately," Gordon continued. "We've had to come from behind. If we can start qualifying better it will help. Hopefully we can make something out of this pole on (Saturday)."

Like Gordon, Earnhardt Jr. could use a good run. Prior to a 10th-place finish from the pole last weekend at Michigan, he'd finished 23rd, 37th, 22nd and 35th in the previous four events. This is a good start.

"I'm really happy with that," Junior said. "We've been really trying to turn it around here these past three weeks. I wasn't on the edge at all.

"The car was just a little tight. Some of the things that we did, changed a lot springs and shocks, gave the car a lot of bite, a lot of grip. I just wanted to get in the top 10, top 15 actually. That was my goal."

Behind Gordon and Junior on the speed chart are Michael Waltrip, Rusty Wallace -- the all-time winningest active driver at BMS with nine career wins -- and Bill Elliott.