The second-year driver, second from last in the 45-car qualifying line for Sunday's EA Sports 500, bumped the Chevrolet driven by Bobby Hamilton from the pole with a lap of 185.240 mph.

	Tony Stewart was 37th fastest in qualifying after relenting to NASCAR's head and neck restraint mandate.

Compton joined Dodge boys Bill Elliott and Sterling Marlin, who won the poles at the Daytona races this season. The Intrepids, new to Winston Cup this year, took five of the top eight spots Friday.

Hamilton, who won the April race at Talladega, was fastest for most of the session and appeared to have the pole wrapped up with his lap of 184.438 before Compton's Melling Racing Intrepid drove onto the 2.66-mile, high-banked oval.

"Hopefully, we won't go from first to worst like last time," said Compton, who led only the first two laps and went out with a blown engine after just 116 of the 188 laps in the spring race.

"These poles only come from a lot of hard work by the boys on the team and by Dodge. We got a lucky draw, too. It cooled down considerably near the end of the session."

Marlin was third at 184.058, while Johnny Benson was fourth in a Pontiac at 184.019, followed by Elliott at 183.942, the Chevrolet of Dale Earnhardt Jr. at 183.867 and the Dodges of John Andretti at 183.684 and Kyle Petty at 183.585.

Other than the battle for the pole, most of the attention Friday was fixed on Tony Stewart because of NASCAR's new mandate that all drivers must use head and neck restraints, found himself near the opposite end of the 43-car lineup after a particularly uninspired qualifying effort.

Stewart, the last holdout among the Cup drivers in using either the HANS device or the Hutchens device, the two head and neck restraint systems currently available, finally did settle on the latter. Still, he didn't get into his Pontiac until after a run-in with Winston Cup director Gary Nelson, a visit to the NASCAR hauler and some solitary moments in his own trailer before the opening practice.

With a knot of media members watching his every move, Stewart wore his Hutchens device when he climbed into his car for qualifying. His fast lap of 181.082. was 41st on the speed chart.

Stewart, who wasn't talking to the media Friday, will start Sunday's race 37th based on team owner points.

Hamilton didn't appear very disappointed by having what would have been his sixth career pole -- and first in four years -- snatched from his hands.

In fact, he said he was just as happy to be second and not qualify for next February's Budweiser Shootout, a made-for-TV sprint for the previous year's pole-winners.

"If we'd got it I'd have been happy for the guys on the teams, but I never want to be in that race," Hamilton said. "It ain't really that I don't want to be in it. I just want to watch. I've driven in it about four times and I've made a hell of a lot more money betting on it than I have running in it."