Burton takes surprise pole

The Richard Childress Racing driver is not considered a qualifying specialist. Prior to this afternoon, Burton had only secured two poles in his entire Cup Career, which spans 13 years and 403 races.

However, Burton defied the blustery weather conditions to lap the 2.5-mile Super Speedway in 47.581 seconds at average speed of 189.151mph on his run, beating second placed Jeff Gordon by 0.069 seconds.

Burton put the surprise down to catching a lucky break in the windy weather conditions. "There is nothing you can really do to control the wind," he said.

"We just got lucky and caught that. That's the best wind we've had down here in all of the testing and everything else. It just played into our hands and we had a car that could take advantage of it."

It is the fourth Daytona 500 pole for RCR, who were also behind the most recent upset in qualifying for the race, after outsider Jeff Green won the pole for the 2003 race.

Defending Daytona 500 winner Jeff Gordon, who was blessed with a late run in the qualifying draw, was second fastest and is therefore the only other driver to know where he will start NASCAR's most prestigious race next week.

Under the complex qualifying system only the front row positions are decided after today's qualifying session, with the remaining 41 positions determined after Thursday's Gatorade Dual races.

Gordon didn't however thank the weather conditions like Burton, but rather a set-up change made prior to his qualifying run.

"There was wind yesterday too," Gordon said. "We made a gear changed based on the wind and it played a role in us being strong today. You can't predict the wind change so you have to just deal with it.

"Jeff [Burton] is a wise veteran; him saying it was down to a lucky break in the wind - that's just good television!

"When you're inside the car you have no idea whether you have caught the wind or not. I could not have told you if we had too much or not enough tail wind. I knew I had a good lap going, but I couldn't tell you if it was a pole run or a 25th place run frankly."

Last year's Daytona 500 pole-sitter Dale Jarrett finished third, but until Gordon's late run he was on the front row in second. Regardless, the Ford Fusion driver was happy to finish third quickest, and went quicker than he though he would.

"That's actually faster than I thought we could go with the car, but the guys worked extremely hard with it to be able to make it go fast, but we also think this car is going to draft well. We know that the Fusion is a good race car and a better balanced car than what we've had here in the past."

Elliott Sadler was fourth quickest ahead of 2005 front-row starter Jimmie Johnson, who briefly held pole position until he was bumped down after drivers made their later qualifying runs.

Bobby Labonte finished sixth in his first run in the Petty Enterprises team, and had looked like he would be the cause of the surprise in qualifying, continuing to top the charts for the first half of the session.

Following a poor last two seasons with Joe Gibbs Racing, Labonte has teamed up with Gordon's former crew chief Robbie Loomis in the number 43 car, which is already showing they will be fast enough to compete in next Sunday's showpiece race.

The fastest rookie driver was 2005 Busch series runner-up Clint Bowyer in seventh place. Bowyer has taken over the number 7 Richard Childress Racing car, vacated by Dave Blaney.

Former Nextel Cup series champion Bill Elliott qualified ninth, and as one of the fastest drivers not in the top 35 in owner points from last year, he has therefore guaranteed himself a slot in next week's race.

SECURED FRONT ROW

Pos  Driver              Make         Speed
 1.  Jeff Burton         Chevrolet    189.151
 2.  Jeff Gordon         Chevrolet    188.877

NOT QUALIFIED

Pos  Driver              Make         Speed
 3.  Dale Jarrett        Ford         188.850
 4.  Elliott Sadler      Ford         188.810
 5.  Jimmie Johnson      Chevrolet    188.762
 6.  Bobby Labonte       Dodge        187.935
 7.  Clint Bowyer        Chevrolet    187.786
 8.  Jamie McMurray      Ford         187.742
 9.  Bill Elliott        Chevrolet    187.715
10.  Kyle Busch          Chevrolet    187.570
11.  Kurt Busch          Dodge        187.539
12.  Denny Hamlin        Chevrolet    187.488
13.  Kevin Harvick       Chevrolet    187.406
14.  Joe Nemechek        Chevrolet    187.402
15.  Sterling Marlin     Chevrolet    187.274
16.  Brian Vickers       Chevrolet    187.239
17.  J.J. Yeley          Chevrolet    187.208
18.  Tony Stewart        Chevrolet    187.196
19.  Travis Kvapil       Chevrolet    187.106
20.  Hermie Sadler       Ford         187.025
21.  Jeff Green          Chevrolet    186.990
22.  Jeremy Mayfield     Dodge        186.908
23.  Robby Gordon        Chevrolet    186.850
24.  Kasey Kahne         Dodge        186.691
25.  Greg Biffle         Ford         186.672
26.  Carl Edwards        Ford         186.614
27.  Mark Martin         Ford         186.436
28.  Terry Labonte       Chevrolet    186.382
29.  Reed Sorenson       Dodge        186.289
30.  Casey Mears         Dodge        186.127
31.  Kevin Lepage        Ford         186.096
32.  Ken Schrader        Ford         186.043
33.  Ryan Newman         Dodge        185.774
34.  Kirk Shelmerdine    Chevrolet    185.361
35.  Paul Menard         Chevrolet    185.334
36.  Stanton Barrett     Chevrolet    185.322
37.  Martin Truex Jr.    Chevrolet    185.242
38.  Larry Foyt          Dodge        185.128
39.  Dale Earnhardt Jr.  Chevrolet    185.124
40.  Scott Wimmer        Chevrolet    184.854
41.  Kyle Petty          Dodge        184.794
42.  Dave Blaney         Dodge        184.566
43.  David Stremme       Dodge        184.544
44.  Randy LaJoie        Chevrolet    184.540
45.  Morgan Shepherd     Dodge        183.576
46.  Michael Waltrip     Dodge        183.411
47.  Derrike Cope        Dodge        183.333
48.  Mike Wallace        Dodge        182.953
49.  Mike Skinner        Dodge        182.771
50.  Brent Sherman       Dodge        182.142
51.  Chad Blount         Dodge        181.906
52.  Chad Chaffin        Chevrolet    181.763
53.  Kenny Wallace       Chevrolet    181.594
54.  Larry Gunselman     Dodge        181.214
55.  Scott Riggs         Dodge        180.890
56.  Andy Belmont        Chevrolet    179.960
57.  Carl Long           Ford         176.936