Pole vault for Gordon

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Jeff Gordon claimed no joy after winning the pole for tonight's Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway, his sixth of the season, after rain forced the cancellation of qualifying.

Because he sits atop the NASCAR Nextel Cup driver standings -- with a 156-point lead over Denny Hamlin, winner of last Sunday's Lenox Industrial Tools 300 at New Hampshire International Speedway -- Gordon was awarded the preferred starting spot in the 43-car grid and first pick of his pit box for tonight's race when the field was set by the points order.

The driver of the No. 24 Chevrolet knew those spoils belonged to Boris Said, the road-racing privateer whose four full-time employees would be easily outnumbered by an average over-the-wall Nextel Cup pit crew.

"I definitely don't feel comfortable being in here right now," Gordon said in his news conference at Daytona's infield media center. "As much as we needed rain for as bad as we qualified, it's really upsetting for those guys who were outside of the top 35, especially guys like Boris, who put up such a great effort. It was pretty exciting to see him running as good as he did here last year."

Said qualified fast enough to sit atop the pole after he turned a hot lap of 185.605 miles per hour in his No. 60 Ford Fusion. But because he ranked outside the top 35 in points, Said wound up getting sent home when rain brought a halt to pole qualifications at the 2 1/2-mile, high-banked superspeedway.

Rain forced the postponement of last night's Busch Series race until 9 this morning. Forecasters were also calling for a 40 percent chance of rain for tonight's Nextel Cup Series race.

"I'm disappointed," Said lamented. "The biggest loss is that we had a chance to be in the Bud Shootout again. That would've been a pretty big thrill. We put so much work in this car, and now we have the most expensive show car ever built."

Said earned a berth in the Bud Shootout, a season-opening dash for cash among the previous season's Bud Pole Award winners, with his surprising pole victory in last year's Pepsi 400. So when Mother Nature intervened and took away his pole victory, the net effect was like missing two races: the Pepsi 400 and the 2008 Bud Shootout.

"But I feel really proud of what our SoBe No Fear Energy Drink team has done, with four full-time people, and making 8-for-8 races," Said said. "I'm going to count this race as a race made. It's disappointing, but there's worse things going on in the world. It's July 4, we've got our men and women overseas fighting and losing their lives, protecting our freedom, and we get to do this stuff, so it's not that big a deal."

Said was one of three drivers outside the top 35 who were among the five fastest qualifiers but were sent home. The others were Evernham Motorsports driver Jeremy Mayfield, who was third fastest (184.680 m.p.h) in his No. 36 Dodge, and beleaguered owner-driver Michael Waltrip, who was fifth fastest (184.309 m.p.h.) in his No. 55 Toyota, which failed to qualify for the 14th time this season.

"It's hard to be too overjoyed about this pole because I do feel for those guys," said Gordon, who would've started deep in the field after he qualified 30th fastest (181.576 m.p.h.). "But certainly from where we're sitting, we trimmed the car out to get it to race as good as we can and knew we took a lot of the speed out of it. And the only thing we were lacking is a good starting position.

"This certainly turns that all around."