Wallace captures Bud Pole at Dover

DOVER, Del. -- Two years ago at Phoenix International Raceway, Rusty Wallace tallied his ninth Bud Pole of the 2000 season. Heading into Dover International Speedway this weekend, he hadn't earned one since.

	Rusty Wallace celebrates his fifth career Bud Pole at Dover. Credit: Autostock

Wallace on Friday snapped that 65-race pole drought, nabbing his fifth career DIS pole with a lap of 156.822 mph in 22.956 seconds. By doing so, he moved into sole possession of second place in career poles earned at the ultra-quick one-mile oval.

"Finally. It's been forever," Wallace said. "It's been a year seems like since I won a pole. We had a good car today. Goodyear brought a great tire. We're back on the pole here at Dover, feels good. We're real optimistic about Sunday."

Wallace entered the weekend tied with Ricky Rudd, Alan Kulwicki and Mark Martin with four career Dover poles apiece. David Pearson heads the list, with six.

Wallace's quick lap fell more than 3 mph off his record speed set in this event two years ago. Still, it was some .08 seconds quicker quicker than the lap laid down by runner-up Dale Jarrett.

"We came off the truck fast," said Jarrett, who elected not to run a second qualifying lap. "I thought I had something for Rusty. I got a little too deep into three and four, hurt me."

Dale Earnhardt, Jr., the winner of this race one year ago, starts third, followed by last week's winner Ryan Newman and Greg Biffle, who continues his impressive substitution stint in the No. 55 Chevrolet.

"The car was that good in practice, and the crew did a real good job getting the car prepared and working on it in practice," Junior said. "The car drove so good. I can't take a whole lot of credit for it.

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"We went up on air pressure, probably just a tick too high, so at least we know what happened, why we didn't get the pole."

Earnhardt Jr.'s got a potent machine. Not only did it win here last fall, it also holds the Michigan Speedway track record.

"Yeah, the car's got a lot of good history," Junior said.

Kurt Busch, Ricky Craven, Bill Elliott, Joe Nemechek and Steve Park make up slots six through 10. Nemechek's effort marks his best of the year. His previous best -- and the only other time he's started in the top 10 this year -- was 10th at Indy.

Prior to Friday, Wallace hadn't qualified on the front row all year. His best qualifying effort of the season came in July at Loudon, N.H., when he rolled off third.

And as tough as qualifying has been, race competition has been worse. Wallace has been in contention at times this year, such as last month at Bristol when he finished second to Jeff Gordon, but he's yet to notch that all-important victory.

Could this be the weekend that the highly publicized drought comes to an end?

"It sure can," he said confidently . "We're trying awful hard. Sometimes I think I'm putting too much pressure on myself. I don't think I've ever been on this kind of streak. We'll see come Sunday."

Come Sunday, Hideo Fukuyama will make his first career Winston Cup start. The Japanese driver qualified, via provisional, with Haas-Carter Motorsports. He'll roll off 43rd.

Other notable qualifiers are as follows: Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon, the fourth and fifth-ranked drivers in the championship point standings, will start 23rd and 24th, respectively. Second-place driver Sterling Marlin starts 26th and points leader Mark Martin rolls off 32nd.