Elliott’s shock pole - Dodge dumps ‘sandbags’

Elliott, who defected to the ChryslerDaimler brand after a career synonymous with Ford's products, was 14th in line to go out for his timed run. But even before 'Awesome Bill' posted his 183.565mph (49.029s) lap on the second of his two fliers in the Ray Evernham Motorsports-entered Intrepid R/T, Dodge had already briefly held the pole thanks to two-time Daytona 500-winner Sterling Marlin.

Elliott, also a two-time Daytona 500-winner, admitted a certain amount of surprise at taking his fourth pole for NASCAR's blue riband season-opener. After several years of struggling with his own Ford team, it was Elliott's first pole since September 1997.

Tony Stewart also briefly held pole in his Joe Gibbs Pontiac, but with four Dodges in the top seven, the accusations of deliberate sand-bagging have already begun to fly.

In Daytona testing last month, Dodge's fastest laps were nearly 2mph down on the benchmark set by Ford's Matt Kenseth. Since then, the 10 cars entered under the Dodge banner have run a two-day test at Talladega under the auspices of project leader Evernham, but Ford and GM teams are still surprised at the jump made.

"I'm tickled to death," said an unrepentant Elliott, "but the lap sure didn't feel that fast. The car drove pretty ill and was jumping around, so when [crew chief] Mike Ford came on and told me the time it blew me away.

"Putting Ray into the mix has really helped things come together, and I think we answered the biggest question, which was where the engine stood. Really, in the last few days we've managed to put the last few pieces of the puzzle together."

Marlin, who leads Champ Car boss Chip Ganassi's two-car Dodge team, also admitted surprised at his speed.

"We got this thing tuned in and my hat goes off to the team," said the two-time Daytona 500 winner. "All I did was mash the gas. I just wish they would let us run a little faster in qualifying. That 200mph mark is great for the fans and great for us."

But Evernham was dismissive of claims of sand-bagging, saying: "I could accuse Bill and Mike of sand-bagging, but... Seriously, when you've got a lot of room to make up, you just have to dig in and work hard. That's what we did. Even our qualifying engines only came off the dyno a couple of days ago.

"Yeah, we had something to gain," he added, "but we gained it. That's all I can say on the matter."

Jerry Nadeau, winner of last season's Atlanta finale, was initially second fastest in his Hendrick Motorsports Chevy Monte Carlo, but was thrown out for suspension infringements discovered in post-qualifying inspection.

Evernham was crew chief for three-time Winston Cup champion Jeff Gordon at Hendrick and was instrumental in bringing Nadeau into the team. Nevertheless, Nadeau was still surprised at Elliott's speed.

"If I said I wasn't... Yeah, I am," he said, "but Ray's pretty crafty, so I suppose it's not too much of a surprise."

Only Elliott and Compton have guaranteed starting slots for the '500'. Every other driver must qualify from their finishing positions in Thursday's pair of 125-mile qualifying races, or hope that their qualifying time is good enough to give them one of the places from the 31st through to the 36th slot. Places 37 to 43 are reserved for provisonals based on last year's owner points.

Compton had been consistently in the top three during the three practice sessions held prior to qualifying and put his qualifying form down to a back-to-basics approach.

"It was one of those days," said the Melling Racing driver. "We started this morning slower than we had been on Friday, but put all of Friday's stuff back on and it all went right.

"The cars are well balanced, and even though I'm a little surprised at how well we qualified, I know we'll be even stronger come the race. But if anybody out there is sceptical of how well we've done, let me tell you that nobody inside Dodge will be sceptical, because they know how much we've all put into this."

Dodge gets its first chance to check out the Intrepid's drafting performance when Elliott lines up as the only Intrepid driver in an 18-car field for Sunday's 70-lap, non-points Budweiser Shootout. But the Georgian says he isn't too confident of finding compliant drafting partners among the Ford and GM ranks.

"As the only Dodge in it, I'd say my chances of getting a drafting partner are somewhere between slim and none," he said.