Blaney wins the first pole for Toyota
LOUDON, N.H. -- Dave Blaney settled behind a microphone at New Hampshire International Speedway's infield media center yesterday to discuss the history-making pole victory he had just delivered his
"History-making?" Blaney asked, as though he couldn't believe those were the words being used to describe the second Bud Pole award of his career.
Yes, history-making. "It feels good," Blaney beamed after he toured the 1.058-mile oval at New Hampshire International Speedway in 29. 426 seconds to put his Bill Davis-owned No. 22 Toyota Camry on the pole position for tomorrow's Lenox Industrial Tools 300. "It's the first pole for Toyota, and I hope it's the first step in a lot of successful days of poles and wins [for Toyota]."
Blaney, who recorded three previous top-10 starts at Bristol (seventh), Richmond (10th), and Charlotte (eighth), was faster (129.437 miles per hour) than the Dodges of Penske Racing driver Kurt Busch (129.182) and Chip Ganassi Racing driver Reed Sorenson (128.589). Juan Pablo Montoya, who became the first Hispanic winner of a Nextel Cup Series event in last week's Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif., was the fastest rookie qualifier in fifth (128.411).
"It seems like Brian Vickers is the one holding the flag for Toyota," said Busch, well before Vickers was sent home after NASCAR officials disallowed his qualifying run (127.338). "To see a Bill Davis car and Dave Blaney sit on the pole today, it's refreshing. It's also exciting to see another auto manufacturer starting to have success."
That success, however, was tempered when NASCAR officials discovered the left front of Vickers's No. 83 Toyota was an eighth of an inch too low after he qualified 28th fastest.
"All the non-top-35 cars [in points] roll back through inspection following qualifying and when we did, we didn't meet the heights on the sticks," said Doug Richert, Vickers's crew chief. "We had several opportunities to roll back through, check air pressure and things like that. For the most part, they let us do just about everything other than put gas back in the car and we were still short on the left front of the car."
Richert said NASCAR inspectors did not seem to allow for a small-part failure, "something that might break in a freak situation," he said.
"When we went through inspection and the car was presented [for qualifying], it was correct," Richert said. "We never raised the hood and then when we went back through, we were too low and now we're being thrown out. So my team has to load up and head home and I really don't have a solid reason as to why."
Vickers's expulsion enabled Chad Chaffin, rookie driver of the No. 49 Dodge recently vacated by Mike Bliss, to be installed as the last starter in the 43-car field. It whittled the Toyota drivers in the field to three: Blaney, rookie David Reutimann, who qualified 17th fastest (127.962 m.p.h.)., and Jeremy Mayfield (29th fastest, 127.180).
Every step forward Toyota has taken this year, it seems, has been followed by a misstep.
When Toyota rolled out its seven factory-supported teams at Daytona International Speedway, its grand entrance in the Nextel Cup Series was tainted by a cheating scandal that involved the car of owner/driver Michael Waltrip. To this point in the season, Toyota had seen little in the way of results -- with just three top 10s -- after its seven teams mightily struggled to qualify, combining for a whopping 52 DNQs this season.
While Waltrip went home for the 13th time this season, the most DNQs of any Toyota driver, Blaney successfully put his car in the race for the 15th time in 17 races.
"I wasn't sure what we could run and I knew we didn't really change anything from practice," Blaney said. "But in my situation, I have to focus on getting into the race more than going for the pole. I can't make a mistake and risk not getting into the race.
"I was a little conservative on my first lap," he added, "but when I found out that it was fast enough to get into the show, I gave that second lap a little more and I was able to put it on top of the board."
And into the history books.
"I think if you ask any of the Toyota teams, they all wanted to be the first," said Blaney, who also delivered Toyota its first Busch Series pole when he qualified fastest for the Stater Bros. 300 Feb. 24 at California Speedway. "But it's not like we set out to do it -- it is really cool to be first but, to tell you the truth, I would have been happy to see any of the [Toyota] teams win the pole here today. Hopefully, the Caterpillar team can also be the first to win a [Nextel Cup] race for Toyota."
