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Ford tough New Chevrolets struggle in Daytona qualifying
Posted: Saturday February 12, 2000 09:52 PM
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Ticker) -- Robert Yates Racing swept the front row for next Sunday's Daytona 500 as Dale Jarrett won the pole during Saturday's pole qualifications. His teammate, Ricky Rudd, was the second-fastest qualifier in a day that was dominated by the Ford teams. Jarrett won the pole with a fast lap at 191.091 miles per hour around the 2.5-mile Daytona International Speedway. It's the second Daytona 500 pole of his career. Rudd, who took over the No. 28 Ford Taurus for Yates this season, was second at 190.384 mph. Four of the top five cars were Fords. Two-time Daytona 500 winner Bill Elliott was third at 190.319 mph followed by Mike Skinner in a Chevrolet at 189.781 and Mark Martin in a Ford at 189.721. Scott Pruett, a longtime CART veteran who is a Winston Cup rookie this season, was the fastest rookie with a lap at 189.470 in a Ford. "Ricky and I are the fortunate ones to be sitting in these cars and driving for Robert Yates Racing," Jarrett said. "A couple of these years, we didn't feel the cars were as fast as they should have been. But this year, there was a lot of effort put forth by both of these teams and it paid off.
"These cars and equal and it showed today." After making his qualification attempt, Jarrett believed his teammate had the best chance of knocking him off the pole. Rudd came close, but Jarrett was able to retain the pole position. "This is an awful good seat to be in," Rudd said. "It's nice to sit in a car that goes fast. I just want to win races. For the first time in six years, I have a positive bank balance by not being a team owner any more. I gave it 100 percent effort that I could, but after walking through Robert Yates Racing and seeing what they have, it made me wonder what we were able to do. "It's different driving for a race team than it is driving for a race team that is owned and controlled by racers. I wanted a chance to work for people where you could win races and have a chance to win a championship. The way the events unfolded, it fell in my lap." Jarrett is the defending NASCAR Winston Cup champion and his dominance has carried over into the 2000 season. "We'll still continue to try to win other poles and start up front as much as we can," said Jarrett, who didn't win a pole in 1999. "You benefit more from this pole in a lot of ways. It's a reward for the two months of effort that the guys at the shop have put forth. Now, they have a reward for that. They have their two cars on the front row and the sponsors get mentioned for a whole week. According to team owner Robert Yates, the crew members worked all night the past two nights in a row to provide two race cars that were capable of sweeping the front row. The Winston Cup cars that attempted to qualify Saturday ran with a new shock rule, where NASCAR issued standard shocks that kept the cars from bottoming out. The past few years, teams spent a great deal of time and money to develop shock packages that kept the cars low to the ground in order to gain more speed. "What we were doing before was totally ridiculous," Jarrett said. "We spent a lot of money on things we didn't need to spend it on. Now, it's back to aerodynamics and horsepower. The race track still has some rough spots, but now it's much smoother." Jarrett believes his confidence is at an all-time high as he enters the biggest race of the season as the defending Winston Cup champion. "We want to be as well prepared as we possibly can," Jarrett said. "With the quality of cars, I know they are top notch and are very, very good. I'm very, very confident in my race team. I'm confident the cars they are giving me are capable of winning." His closest competition for the pole came from Rudd. "We tried to get a clean lap in the morning practice, but going into qualifying, I wasn't sure we had enough to beat him," Rudd said. "I'm just happy with second right now." Elliott restructured his race team over the offseason and it apparently paid off, at least in qualifying, as he was the third fastest. "We are light years ahead of where we were at the end of last season," Elliott said. "As we came into Atlanta in the fall of last year, I was kind of at a crossroads where I was going to end up. We went to work and put some new things together and we started putting some real good people together that came in and it has really turned my program around." Although the race is still one week away, Elliott is hoping the success in qualifying will transfer to the Daytona 500 next Sunday. "It says a lot because I believe this is one of the best race cars I've had coming down here in a long time," Elliott said. "But we'll learn a lot more about what the car is capable of on Monday because we aren't in any of the races (Bud Shootout or Bud Shootout Qualifier) on Sunday. We need to learn how well this car does in the draft."
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