Gordon

MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Jeff Gordon followed his best race of the season with his best qualifying effort, rebounding from slow practice speeds to win the pole Friday for the Virginia 500.

The defending Winston Cup champion, just sixth in points after seven races, turned a lap at 94.161 mph under cloudy skies at Martinsville Speedway, the oldest and shortest track in NASCAR's premier series.

It is his second pole of the season, the 41st of his career and the least probable after his Chevrolet was only 25th-fastest in practice.

"It's this team," Gordon said. "They just never gave up, kept working on it throughout the whole practice, getting it better and better.

"The car just turned really good in the middle and allowed me to get on the gas hard up off the corner and carry a lot of straightaway speed. I couldn't be more happy, more surprised or more proud of this team."

Gordon is coming off a second-place finish at Texas Motor Speedway, his first top-five this season.

"There's no doubt that did a whole lot for us," he said.

Gordon's lap bumped Bobby Hamilton to the outside of the front row after a lap at 94.092 mph, and helped give Chevrolet the top four spots. Dale Earnhardt Jr. will start third, even after spinning out and only putting one lap on the board. Terry Labonte will start fourth.

	Dale Earnhardt Jr. explains to a crew member how his car spun out on his second qualifying lap.

"I made a mistake," Earnhardt said. "I got up on the curb between three and four. I didn't think that car would turn that good."

Still, the lap left Earnhardt confident for the race Sunday.

"I think we've got a great race car," he said. "If we can be up in the top five at the start, we'll be there all day. I promise."

Hamilton won here in 1998 and also feels good about Sunday.

"This type of race you have to be pretty aggressive, but you can actually space yourself out and stay in clean traffic a lot," he said.

Labonte has competed on Martinsville's tight oval 46 times, and will start better than 24th here for the first time in his last 10 races.

"This is the first time we've had a real short track car in a while," Labonte said. "I knew the first time out we were going to be good."

Rusty Wallace, the active leader with six victories on Martinsville's 0.526-mile oval, will be the first Ford off the line Sunday, and Bill Elliott will start outside Wallace as the first Dodge across the line.

Elliott scraped the wall during his second qualifying lap.

"I had to give them a little excitement there on the second lap," he said. "I think it would have been faster but the car just didn't stick."

Pontiac, the only manufacturer yet to win at least one pole this season, struggled again with Tony Stewart the top qualifier at No. 8.

Many others also struggled, with defending race champion Dale Jarrett getting the 31st starting spot, series points leader Sterling Marlin qualifying 29th and Virginia native Elliott Sadler using a provisional.

"It's the same old song and dance," said Sadler, who always struggles at his home track. "We're in left field -- either I am or the car or both."

Only one driver, Randy Renfrow, failed to make the race.