Newman, Busch a 1-2 punch at Lowe’s

Penske Racing teammates Ryan Newman and Kurt Busch swept the front row in qualifying Thursday for NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600 Nextel Cup race Sunday.

Newman won his fourth 600 pole with a lap of 185.312 mph on the 1.5-mile Lowe’s Motor Speedway, while Busch was second at 185.065 mph, both in Dodges.

Coincidentally, Helio Castroneves of Roger Penske’s team is on the pole for Sunday’s Indianapolis 500 in the IndyCar Series. While Penske has 14 Indy 500 wins, his Cup teams have never won at Lowe’s.

Hendrick Motorsports drivers Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon -- who have dominated the Cup series this year with seven wins between them, and also have stellar records at Lowe’s -- did not qualify well.

Johnson, the reigning Cup champion and El Cajon native who has won five times at Lowe’s, starts 21st and Gordon, a four-time winner at Lowe’s, starts 32nd.

“Fortunately it’s a 600-mile race,” said Gordon, who leads the series’ points after winning three of the last four races.

Meanwhile, the misery that is Michael Waltrip’s season moved into its third month.

Waltrip had completed the first of his two qualifying laps when his No. 55 Toyota Camry spun and crashed hard into the infield wall. He wasn’t hurt, but Waltrip -- who also owns his team -- wasn’t fast enough to make Sunday’s race.

He has now failed to qualify for 11 races in a row since the season-opening Daytona 500 in February.

After his mangled car came to a stop, his older brother Darrell Waltrip, a three-time series champion and now a NASCAR television analyst, said on the broadcast: “It’s breaking my heart to watch this.”

But a few hours earlier, Michael Waltrip vowed that his season would eventually improve.

“I’ve spent the last 25 years building a career and a reputation that enabled me to have this opportunity, and the first 11 weeks of this opportunity isn’t the end,” he said.

“I believe I can build race cars that are competitive,” he said in an interview at Raceworld USA, his team’s new $20-million headquarters in Cornelius, just north of Charlotte. The 165,000-square-foot site also allows visitors to watch Waltrip’s cars being built.

Waltrip, 44, started one of the new Toyota teams this year, with himself, 1999 title winner Dale Jarrett and David Reutimann as drivers.

Reutimann also crashed in qualifying Thursday, but Jarrett made the race.

A two-time Daytona 500 winner and a TV commentator himself, Waltrip was the most visible public cheerleader of Toyota’s entrance into the Cup series. Toyota’s Costa Mesa plant builds the engines for Waltrip’s cars.

But Waltrip quickly ran into trouble. Before the Daytona 500, NASCAR found an unauthorized substance in Waltrip’s engine. NASCAR stripped Waltrip of 100 championship points and his crew chief was suspended indefinitely.

Waltrip finished 30th at Daytona, his last points race.

And in early April, Waltrip was charged with reckless driving and failing to report an accident after his car hit a telephone pole near his home in Sherrill’s Ford, N.C. Waltrip has said he fell asleep.

His qualifying drought partly reflects NASCAR’s system of allowing the top 35 cars, based on owners’ points, to automatically make the field. Waltrip hasn’t been in that group, so there’s only a handful of available spots each week.

But so far, Toyota and his main sponsor, NAPA Auto Parts, have continued to support him. Toyota, in fact, has rushed more technical help to the team in hopes of making his cars faster.

Asked if NAPA had given him an ultimatum to quickly improve or risk losing its backing, Waltrip said: “Quite the opposite.”

“I’ve offered to them to not drive the car, let someone else drive it,” he said. But he said NAPA told him “we want you to be our guy.”

james.peltz@latimes.com