Atlanta qualifying notes: Harvick impresses

Harvick was originally going to compete in seven Winston Cup races this year, but when Earnhardt was killed in the Daytona 500, team owner Richard Childress made the obvious choice of putting Harvick into the Chevrolets for the rest of the season.

Harvick scored his first top 10 finish when he was eighth in last Sunday's race at Las Vegas. He qualified fifth on Friday for Sunday's Cracker Barrel 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway with a lap at 191.781 mph.

"Every lap in Atlanta is in the seat, and you know how fast you're going," Harvick said. "The car's been good since we unloaded it. I actually probably tried to get a little too much out of it, but if you don't try, you never know. Getting just a little bit more out of the car here in Atlanta is tough to tell yourself to do.

Harvick admits he is still learning the rigours of NASCAR Winston Cup racing, but is getting more comfortable with his crew at Richard Childress Racing.

"I don't know that it's ever going to get any easier," Harvick said. "About the time you think you can let down or that it's getting any easier is just about the time you're going to get your butt whipped. It's better to just keep digging and just keep doing what we're doing.

"Kevin Hamlin is making my job real easy because every time we've unloaded it off the truck it's fast and easy to drive. Just going back and forth between the garages and waking up on time and figuring out what time the rookie meetings are and all that has been the hardest part to get used to. I've had to manage my time much better."



After winning last Sunday's race in Las Vegas, his first victory of 2001, Jeff Gordon qualified second on Friday for the Cracker Barrel 500 at Atlanta.

Gordon believes that his team has some momentum since the start of the season, even though he was involved in a 19-car crash in the February 18 Daytona 500.

"These guys are on a roll," he said. "It's easy to say, because I was saying this over the off-season, just how
focused this team is. You can see it in their eyes. They have a whole new attitude. It's easy to say it then, but now it's nice to come to the race track and see those results come into place.

"Last year it wasn't like that. We had to struggle a lot at times last year. And I guess I'm glad in a way that we did because it's helped us to dig that much deeper and find out just how good of a team we really are. Things are going well for us, but you know that to win a championship, you've got to have it every week."

Gordon credits crew chief Robbie Loomis with the strong start, which is satisfying because Loomis was criticised for team team's slow start last year when he joined Hendrick Motorsports as Gordon's team leader.

"Last year, he had plenty of expectations just going into the season," Gordon said. "And then when we got out there and we weren't performing as well as we have in the past. Of course you know people are going to talk and wonder if it's Robbie or is it Jeff? Or is this team just not what it was when [former crew chief] Ray Evernham was there.

"It took us a while to find what we have and make it work. I feel real happy for the team, and also for Robbie and for all the hard work and the things he had to hear. I told him to stop listening to people, to stop watching TV, stop reading the papers, because we just had to keep working hard. It's starting to come back to us right now."



Defending NASCAR Winston Cup champion Bobby Labonte qualified 34th on Friday at a race track where he has won four races.

"We were extremely tight at the beginning of the day," Labonte said. "Then we loosened the car up, made our qualifying run and we were extremely loose at that point in time. We tried to tighten it up for qualifying, but we still don't have the car comfortable.

"It's kind of normal now. It's not baffling at all anymore. We're kind of on a regular thing here now, evidently."