Bud Pole quals at Texas canceled as confusion rains

FORT WORTH, Texas -- With severe weather warnings -- including wind gusts in excess of 60 mph --tornado watches, hail and heavy rain issued late Friday afternoon, NASCAR canceled Bud Pole Qualifying for Sunday's Samsung 500 at Texas Motor Speedway just before 6 p.m. local time.

Because of the decision, which was made about 40 minutes before the first car was scheduled to roll off pit road, Jeff Gordon and Jeff Burton will lead the 43-car field to the green flag Sunday afternoon.

Notes: Waltrip silent

Michael Waltrip met with NASCAR officials at Texas on Friday, but not with anyone else. Waltrip, who missed his sixth consecutive race, didn't grant requests for interviews.

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Gordon, who already has two poles this season and 58 in his career, will not officially be credited with one for this race since the lineup was set through owner points (top 35 positions), with the balance set per the 2007 Nextel Cup Series rulebook.

Texas is one of only three racetracks on the circuit on which Gordon has failed to win a Cup race. Burton won the inaugural Cup race at Texas, which was the only time in 12 races that qualifying has been canceled, though bad weather has affected a number of TMS weekends.

Gordon was only 25th in practice, which was held in two sessions after the initial practice was interrupted by rain at about noon CT. Gordon said the fast Texas oval was tough to come to grips with, which has led to 12 different winners in the track's Cup history.

"To me, it's just a very, very tricky place to get the right combination of aerodynamics, horsepower, mechanical grip and setup and get comfortable as a driver with the speeds we carry here," Gordon said. "Twice we've had cars that were capable of winning here.

"Once, I think it was the first year, when we got taken out when leading or running second. And then the other was when Elliott Sadler won [April 2004] and we had electrical problems. So we've been in position to win here -- just not recently."

The cancellation was the worst possible news to David Reutimann, Jeremy Mayfield, John Andretti, A.J. Allmendinger, Michael Waltrip, Ward Burton, Scott Wimmer and Kevin Lepage, who did not meet the qualifying criteria and were sent home.

Mayfield won this event's pole in 1998, but had only practiced 45th-best of 51 cars. Reutimann was ninth in practice and Burton 28th and they would have made the race if they qualified in those same positions in relation to the other "go or go home" cars.

Due to their relatively low standing in the points, last year's two Texas pole winners, Kasey Kahne (spring) and Brian Vickers (fall) will each start near the rear, Kahne in 34th and Vickers 36th. Vickers, in fact, made it into the race based on his fall 2006 victory at Talladega Superspeedway.

While a number of tornadoes touched down in the greater Dallas/Fort Worth area, and baseball- and tennis ball-sized hail fell in numerous locations, Texas Motor Speedway reported no major damage at the facility as of 7:15 p.m. track time.