Wallace takes Nextel pole

The evening session was controversial with NASCAR strictly enforcing its pit speed limit, set at 4,000rpm for the session. Qualifying consisted of three laps on the track with a mandatory four-tire pit stop, the total time determining the resulting standings.

It is not known exactly how NASCAR determines pit speed, as a speed trap to monitor multiple simultaneous pit stops would be problematic. Pit speed, established for safety reasons in 1992, always has been largely a judgment call. Friday night, the penalty for speeding was 20s tacked onto a team's total time, which proved costly to several top competitors, including Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Kasey Kahne, who had made the fastest overall single lap.

Wallace, who won this non-championship event in 1989, put in three laps with a four-tyre pit stop, the total time coming to 2m03.998sec to edge Newman out of the top spot. Newman's total was 2m04.284s.

The session exposed the competitive tension between veteran Wallace and relative newcomer Newman, who left Wallace (and everyone else) in the dust last year with eight victories and 11 poles. Newman apparently believed that Wallace had come in too fast on his stop and should have been penalised.

"Knowing Rusty, I'm sure he wouldn't have run quite that hard if we hadn't been on the pole," Newman opined. "I will say it upsets me. I'm not happy we're not number one, but we'll go on.

"It's just my opinion from watching what happened last year. I know I was almost 20mph off. I know pit road speed isn't exactly measured with a radar gun, but obviously they cracked down a little bit harder. The drivers didn't get that much faster getting to pit road this year."

Wallace admitted he came in a little hot but slowed quickly to regulated speed. "My pit road speed was supposed to be around 4,000rpm," he said. "I crossed the [entry] cone at about 4,800. The car slowed down to about 3,200 before I exited pit road. In my mind that balanced out to be the correct pit road speed. Then I punched the throttle real quick and kept my eyeballs on the tach to get all I possibly could out of the pit road. When I got it down there, it all worked out good.

Roush Racing team-mates Matt Kenseth and Mark Martin, both of whom recorded flawless pit stops, Kenseth's in an astonishing 12.3sec. Tony Stewart was fifth and Kevin Harvick sixth. Jimmie Johnson, defending event winner and fastest in practice, was over-cautious in the pits and lost time over the bumps on the first of his three laps. He ended up 11th.

Twenty-two drivers challenged the clock, including race winners from this year and last year, former NASCAR champions, former Winston winners, and other criteria. A 23rd driver will advance from the preceding Nextel Open qualifying heat Saturday night, with another, advancing via fan vote, to be announced after the heat.