A Quick Start for Jarrett : Auto racing: In his first official outing as a replacement for Irvan, he wins the pole for the Daytona 500.

Dale Jarrett is a one-year replacement for the ailing Ernie Irvan on Robert Yates’ Winston Cup team, but he is making the most of it.

Jarrett, who won the 1993 Daytona 500 for Joe Gibbs’ team, switched over the winter to Yates’ team when it became apparent that Irvan would not be available this season. Saturday, in his first official outing in the black, red and yellow Ford Thunderbird, Jarrett won the pole for next Sunday’s 37th Daytona 500 with a lap of 193.494 m.p.h.

It was the fastest qualifying lap around Daytona International Speedway’s 2 1/2-mile track in four years and was the first pole of Jarrett’s Winston Cup career, coming in his 229th race.

Next to Jarrett on the front row for the 500 will be Dale Earnhardt, the seven-time series champion who will be making his 17th attempt to win NASCAR’s showcase event. Earnhardt was only 0.011 seconds behind Jarrett with a speed of 193.449 in a new Chevrolet Monte Carlo.

Jarrett and Earnhardt are the only drivers from the 57 who tried Saturday to automatically qualify for the main event. Starting positions for the rest of the field will be determined from results of the Twin 125-mile races on Thursday.

“Obviously, I’d like to take all the credit (for the pole) as the driver, but that would be wrong,” Jarrett said. “I can’t say enough about how Robert Yates and (crew chief) Larry McReynolds made it awful easy for me to come in and do the job.

“We came here to win the pole, one of the 125s and the 500. That was, and is, our goal and we’ve accomplished the first part. Tomorrow we’ll get on the track and practice for Thursday, and then Sunday.”

Jarrett, whose father, Ned, was a two-time Winston Cup champion, joined Yates’ team with the provision that he would turn the No. 28 car back to Irvan at the end of the season.

Irvan suffered head injuries in an accident Aug. 20 while practicing at Michigan International Speedway and still has double vision.

Yates’ team won the 1992 Daytona 500 with the late Davey Allison driving and finished second last year with Irvan.

Jarrett posted his time in the middle of the qualifying order, and then he had to sweat out attempts by potential pole winners, such as Terry Labonte, Michael Waltrip, defending 500 champion Sterling Marlin and Earnhardt, who was 56th among the 57 on the track.

“All I could do was sit in the trailer with the guys and see what would happen,” Jarrett said. “We were pretty nervous because Terry had been fastest in morning practice and Waltrip had the fastest time in preseason testing. Of course, we really worried about Earnhardt because he hadn’t shown his hand all week. We didn’t know how much he had left.

“I’ll admit I was excited every time I heard a time come up short. I can’t mask my feelings about how much it means to me to win this.”

Marlin was third fastest at 193.349, with a surprising rookie, Robert Pressley, fourth at 193.050. Then came the Labonte brothers, Terry at 192.872 and Bobby, Jarrett’s replacement with Gibbs’ team, at 192.550.

After Jarrett’s Ford, the next five qualifiers drove Chevrolets. Waltrip was seventh in the fastest Pontiac, 192.152.

“We would have liked the pole, but our focus is on winning races and the championship, and the next race is the Daytona 500,” Earnhardt said. “It’s pretty exciting to come down here with a new race car that has never run at Daytona and sit on the outside pole.

“We’ll see how it runs in the draft tomorrow in the Busch Clash.”

The Busch Clash is a 20-lap sprint for last year’s Winston Cup pole winners, plus two invitees.

Car owner Junior Johnson was fined $45,000 and his car was held out of qualifying when NASCAR officials found it had an illegal intake manifold. Crew chief Mike Beam was fined $100 and put on indefinite probation.