Brickyard qualifying spreads hope, dismay

SPEEDWAY, Ind. -- Kevin Lepage and Jason Leffler experienced a happy return to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Saturday.

Lepage, whose last appearance in the Brickyard 400 was in 1999, qualified 21st in the No. 57 CLR Ford, while Leffler, who ran the 2000 Indianapolis 500, wound up 26th in the No. 0 NetZero Pontiac.

BRICKYARD 400  •  Lineup  •  Complete race coverage

Lepage, who finished 32nd in the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway in his only other Winston Cup start this season, was only 41st fastest in Friday's practice. But he took advantage of cool, cloudy conditions on Saturday.

"We had an early draw and the CLR guys did a good job preparing the car," Lepage said. "We were off a little bit last night and worked on it pretty hard over the evening.

"It was a pretty good lap. It was all I had."

Leffler's run was even more impressive in that his crew spent most of Friday's practice replacing a blown engine. He only turned four laps in practice, barely scratching 175 mph.

"I missed a shift yesterday and blew the engine and didn't get any practice," Leffler said. "The guys changed the engine in an hour and 15 minutes, rear-end housing and everything.

"The car has a lot of potential. I think we could have run a lot faster. I just couldn't get the arcs the way I wanted into the corner. All in all, it wasn't a bad lap."

	Brett Bodine

On the other hand, bad laps doomed Brett Bodine, Ken Schrader and Christian Fittipaldi, among others.

"That's not gonna be quick enough," said Bodine, whose lap of 180.484 mph was the same as Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s, but not good enough to make Sunday's race. "I'm just really disappointed.

"You can't do anything about the weather and we just happened to catch the time when the track was as its hottest. We could have been better. We just missed it a little bit, but it doesn't take much here."

Kyle Petty made the race by using a provisional, but the Petty Enterprises team struggled all weekend.

"I think the weather was funny, " Petty said. "It looked like the fishing forecast showing the good times and bad times of the day.

"I think it started well and the first 10 or 15 cars got a good shot at it, then it got bad and good again and bad and good again. We picked up as much as anybody, but we've been off since we've been here with both of our cars."

Jeff Burton, Terry Labonte, Ricky Rudd, Johnny Benson, Larry Foyt and Derrike Cope also used provisionals to make Sunday's field.