Winston qualifying: Rusty, Prince of Darkness
The power went out at Charlotte's Lowe's Motor Speedway, but Rusty Wallace was in electrifying form to take pole for the non-points, big money Winston all-star race
The race is open to NASCAR Winston Cup race winners from 2000, plus former winners of the event, and is the nearest the series has to an all-star game. Just to add to the one-off feel of the event, qualifying is based on a pitstop plus three timed laps of the 1.5-mile tri-oval and Wallace's Penske Racing South crew were key to the 1989 champ landing pole.
Minutes before Wallace's run, the area had been plunged into, erm, twilight by a power cut, but with generators providing emergency lighting and juice for the scoring and timing, the show went on. Obviously, the later you ran, the darker it got: Wallace had twilight, but the likes of Jeff Burton had pretty much full darkness.
Bobby Labonte lines up second, ahead of Kevin Harvick and Tony Stewart for Saturday night's unedr the lights ('leccy permitting) extravaganza.
Two more cars from the Winston Open and a last-gasp No Bull race will join the 19-car field for an event consisting of two 30-lap segments and a 10-lap shoot-out. But if that sounds complicated, add in the fact that electronic voting will decide a field inversion for the final segment.
Johnny Benson is on pole for the Winston Open, which is open to anybody who does not qualify for The Winston by right.
Click here for the qualifying results.
N.B. Time is based on pitstop and three timed laps
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