Craven paces Winston Cup Happy Hour

CONCORD, N.C. -- After steady rain showers canceled Winston Cup qualifying this weekend at Lowe's Motor Speedway, Saturday's Happy Hour practice gave fans and teams a look at who's stout heading into Sunday's UAW-GM Quality 500.

	Ricky Craven is 16th in the Winston Cup points race. Credit: Autostock

Ricky Craven's Tide Ford headed up the speed chart in the final practice, rounding the 1.5-mile oval in 30.341 seconds at 177.977 mph. That lap was .1 seconds quicker than his time in the morning practice, which left him sixth on the speed chart.

"The car is running really well and I'm pretty excited because some of the things that we did the car responded to and it's the same Tide Ford we qualified and finished third with in the spring," Craven said. "We're really optimistic."

Dale Earnhardt, Jr., was second in Saturday' final practice, just .05 second off of Craven's pace. Junior picked it up considerably from the morning's first practice, in which he was 25th.

Joe Nemechek was third in Happy Hour, followed by Rusty Wallace and Jimmie Johnson. Three Hendrick Motorsports cars, Nemechek, Johnson and Jeff Gordon ranked among the top 10.

Craven's time was nearly .2 seconds off Ryan Newman's quick pace in the morning practice. Newman scorched the LMS surface at 179.348 mph (30.109 seconds), but as the 45-minute session neared conclusion, Newman lost control of his Ford between Turns 3 and 4 and backed it into the wall.

UAW-GM QUALITY 500  •  Lineup  •  Happy Hour Speeds  •  2nd Practice Speeds  •  1st Practice Speeds

"I just got loose," Newman said. "I didn't hit anything or do anything, I just got loose and couldn't save it. It's unfortunate, but hopefully we can learn something and go on and be better in the race."

His backup car wasn't so potent, ranking 35th on the final list. That makes starting from the rear a difficult prospect.

"I think we learned a few things (with the backup)," Newman said. "We haven't diagnosed everything yet, we're just trying to get everything back in order as far as having two cars and figuring what's the best of what and everything else.

"We've got to start last, so that's gonna change our setup a little bit, but we'll just go from there."

Points leader and polesitter Tony Stewart was ninth Saturday. Mark Martin -- second in the points and the winner here in back May -- is 11th. He trails Stewart by 72 points heading into Sunday's affair.