Atwood Wins Pole in a Dodge

After an absence of 15 years from NASCAR’s Winston Cup circuit, Dodges celebrated their return to the pinnacle of stock car racing by taking the front two positions in February’s season-opener, the Daytona 500.

Two more Dodges repeated the feat Friday at Phoenix International Raceway. Only the drivers were different.

Rookie Casey Atwood and veteran John Andretti will be in the first two spots for Sunday’s Checker Auto Parts 500. At Daytona, Bill Elliott and Stacy Compton made up the front row.

Atwood, a chunky 21-year-old from Antioch, Tenn., lapped Phoenix’s Desert Mile at 131.296 mph, well below Rusty Wallace’s year-old track record of 134.178. Andretti’s 131.071 was the only other speed better than 130.

“It wasn’t a perfect lap, but it was good enough to win the pole and that’s what we needed,” said Atwood, looking for his first Winston Cup win as one of Ray Evernham’s Dodge development drivers.

“It’s been great working with Ray. He’s really helped me a lot. This has been a struggling year, but I’ve learned more this year than I’ve learned in my whole racing career. Any time you can gain knowledge from him it’s very helpful.”

Evernham, Jeff Gordon’s crew chief for three championship seasons, left Gordon two years ago to spearhead Dodge’s return to Winston Cup racing. His first driver choices were Elliott, the veteran, and Atwood, the rookie.

Elliott qualified sixth at 130.596 for Sunday’s 500-kilometer--312 miles--race.

Gordon, closing in on a fourth championship, qualified 14th at 130.142 in hopes of winning his first race at Phoenix. It is the only track on which he has raced five times or more without winning. This will be his eighth attempt.

Starting 14th isn’t too bad at Phoenix, where the average starting position of the 13 Winston Cup winners has been 12. Only five races have been won from a top-10 starting position and no won has won from the pole.

Three Ford drivers qualified behind the lead Dodges, Jeff Burton, Rusty Wallace and Robert Pressley. The first Chevrolet is Kenny Wallace’s. Rusty Wallace’s younger brother qualified seventh, alongside Ron Hornaday Jr. in the fastest Pontiac.

Atwood is the third rookie to win a pole this year and his is the sixth for the Dodge Intrepids. Dodge drivers have won three races, Sterling Marlin at Michigan and Charlotte, and Ward Burton at Darlington.

“When I first came to the program, I never really set a goal to win a pole,” Atwood said. “That was just going to be a bonus if we did that. My goal was to win rookie of the year, and even that turned out way harder than it seemed at first, with all the struggles we had at the beginning. I definitely feel like this has made up for a lot of our struggles.”

With four races remaining, Atwood is third in rookie points, trailing Kevin Harvick, 294-201. Kurt Busch is second with 230.

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Content to finish second and all but clinch his third NASCAR Craftsman Truck championship, Chevy driver Jack Sprague followed Ford driver Greg Biffle across the finish line in Friday’s Chevy Silverado 150.

All Sprague needs to win the crown now is take the green flag in next Saturday’s race at California Speedway.

Biffle had to race nine laps extra in accordance with NASCAR’s rule that no truck race can finish on a caution flag lap. One lap from the checkered flag, Brian Rose’s spin into the wall brought out the emergency crew and delayed the finish.

Biffle, who started 11th, took the lead on Lap 81 of what turned out to be a 159-lap race when he passed Sprague and held the lead till the end. It was the 16th Craftsman Truck win of his career and the second this year for car owner Jack Roush.

“It was a great run,” said Biffle, who will drive in the Busch Grand National race here today. “It was my first win here in Phoenix and we definitely learned what the track is going to be like and possibly what it’s going to do. It helped me qualify fourth for the Busch race. I qualified the truck right before the Busch car and that helped me.”

Sprague said he thought he might have won the race, but elected not to challenge Biffle toward the end.

“A guy’s got to do what he’s got to do, and what we had to do was make sure we win the championship,” the longtime Chevrolet driver said.