Nadeau's lap casts light on dark season

DARLINGTON, S.C. -- If Jerry Nadeau makes a sudden run towards the top 10 in the NASCAR Winston Cup standings, he might have a sudden change in direction at Darlington Raceway to thank.

	Jerry Nadeau is still looking for his first top 20 finish of 2003. Credit: Autostock

Nadeau qualified his No. 01 U.S. Army Pontiac third Friday for Sunday's Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 with a lap in 29.069 seconds, an average speed of 169.170 mph.

He was only .167 seconds behind first time Bud Pole winner Elliott Sadler. The run equaled his career best qualifying performance at the tricky, 1.366-mile track but more importantly signaled a gross turnaround in his season's fortunes.

"We worked on race runs this morning and only made a few qualifying runs and we weren't happy," Nadeau said of the day's practice, with rain looming over the entire weekend's schedule. "We made a huge change right before qualifying and man, if I would've known how good that car was I could have had a good lap."

Nadeau's MB2 Motorsports team and crew chief Ryan Pemberton had struggled mightily to come to grips with the 2003 Grand Prix in the season's first four races. In fact, 22nd at Las Vegas was his best finish, and he is only 31st in the standings on account.

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"Overall Ryan's been a great crew chief," Nadeau said. "But we've struggled.

"We've dug ourselves a hole here since the beginning of the year where we've just been fighting a loose race car. Everywhere I've gone I've just been struggling loose."

Until Friday's qualifying session, that is. Even though his last trip to Darlington with MB2 also started third but ended in last, in the 1999 Southern 500, Nadeau knows how important Friday's effort could be.

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"What we found is something we can do at a lot of other race tracks," Nadeau said. "We've been a lot better than we finished in the last four races and I hate it for the U.S. Army and the whole team.

"It's pretty interesting. I've qualified third here before one time and it was with Ryan, in a Pontiac and with the same team, so it's pretty neat to come back and do the same thing.

"We're learning, we're a new team and we've scrambled. We've got new race cars --- we've only got four or five cars back at the shop and the guys are working hard, so we're a little bit behind but overall I'm happy where we're at."

Nadeau has only one top-10 finish in 10 Darlington starts, a ninth in the 2001 Southern 500.