Roush Racing claims half of first four rows

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. -- Jeff Gordon might have grabbed the Bud Pole Award Friday for Sunday's Sirius at The Glen, but Roush Racing collared plenty of respect.

The five-car Roush unit, which includes dominant Winston Cup championship leader Matt Kenseth, emphasized good teamwork when it placed four cars in the top eight in qualifying. Jack Roush's fifth car was 23rd.

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The effort should not have been a surprise. Before he moved to the Winston Cup Series in 1988, Roush had run successful road race programs in the SCCA and IMSA, winning numerous championships.

"General history shows that Roush does well on road courses," said Kurt Busch, who will line up eighth. "He's got great ideas as far as how to build cars."

But bottom line was a test session that three of Roush's cars made here last month. In that case, practice made nearly perfect on Friday.

	Mark Martin won three straight races at The Glen from 1993-1995. Credit: Autostock

"We had three teammates come up here and test -- Mark Martin, Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle," Busch said. "So with those three guys testing they brought in a lot of notes."

It paid off the most for Biffle, who had a decent Watkins Glen pedigree via a Bud Pole and race win here in the Craftsman Truck Series. Despite skipping qualifying practice at the test, Biffle was ecstatic after he qualified second.

"I'm still shaking from that lap," said Biffle, who was the 10th car of 47 that attempted to qualify and ran a lap in 70.845 seconds, an average speed of 124.497 mph. "We tested and were pretty decent (but) what's kind of unique is we didn't do any qualifying practice.

"I had to leave early and go to Oklahoma and Mark drove my car in qualifying trim and we used some of those notes, so it was a pretty dang good lap.

"I made one mistake, got up on the curb and got a little sideways and lost some forward momentum. That's what cost me being on the pole today (but) I knew it was gonna be something."

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Martin, who matched his best qualifying effort of the season -- only his second top-five start of the year -- when he qualified third with a lap in 70.864/124.464, lauded his teammate for his effort.

"He's crazy and anybody that's seen him drive knows it," Martin said, laughing. "I drove his car (during the test). I know he's crazy because I know that's (second place) all him.

"He's quite a guy. When he gets a little more time in these things he's certainly gonna be a force to be reckoned with."

For his part, Martin said Gordon earned his pole with a virtual mistake-free lap.

"He got a better lap than we did and got a better lap than Greg did, too," Martin said. "I don't think that was car. I didn't need a better car today to win the pole -- I needed a better lap.

"It just came down to every inch of that race track because there were opportunities to gain or lose. Either I didn't gain enough in areas that I might have, or I lost a little bit too much in the areas that I did."

Biffle said his experience in Busch cars and Craftsman Trucks was invaluable to him, but a simple love of road racing by he and his crew chief, former motorcycle racing champion Randy Goss, was a big part of their success Friday, and Busch credited his mate as well.

"I respect Biffle the most out of anybody in the garage area just because of how much he taught me with the truck program," Busch said. "It's great to see him right there."

The other Roush cars included Kenseth in seventh and Jeff Burton in 23rd.

Biffle said the best might be yet to come for his team.

"What I'm excited about is it's just as fast in race trim," Biffle said. "It was putting down one minute 12-flat laps in race trim when we were here testing, so I'm pretty excited about that."