DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Pole qualifications for the 50th running of the Daytona 500 provided a two-sided tale of a champion's determination and a sinner's redemption.
Jimmie Johnson, the two-time defending NASCAR Sprint Cup champion, proved he was not about to rest on his laurels after he grabbed the pole with a fast lap of 187.075 miles per hour, driving his Lowe's No. 48 Chevrolet Impala SS in windy conditions at Daytona International Speedway.
"I'm just real excited to see everything from the offseason come together," said Johnson, who also won the Daytona 500 pole as a rookie driver at Hendrick Motorsports in 2002. "We had a great test session. To come down here with a car that was in the wind tunnel and worked on and completed when we were down here testing [last month], to see it come together with its first laps yester day with a strong run right off the truck . . . to build on that, find some more speed and lock down the pole today, says a lot for the team and the preparation."
Michael Waltrip, meanwhile, redeemed himself after his reputation as a car owner/driver and that of his
Hyder no longer works for Michael Waltrip Racing and Kennedy since has been reassigned to a new role with the team.
"I'm still very emotional, but for obviously drastically different reasons," said Waltrip, who captured the outside pole with a run of 186.734 miles per hour, the fastest run by the five Toyota drivers who qualified among the top 12. "That Wednesday night before I came in here on Thursday morning [before last year's Gatorade Duels] was the first time in my mind that I had accepted that we had done something illegal. Up until then I kept thinking every test, every moment that went by they were going to find out it was a mistake. Something happened that was explainable."
But that evening, Waltrip recalled, he sat with his Toyota manufacturers, whom he dragged into the middle of the imbroglio, "and I explained to them that someone had tampered with our engine and our fuel," he said. "That was a very difficult thing to do."
Waltrip was the picture of humiliation when he met with the media the next day. "Now I'm in here a year later and I'm the opposite - I'm happy," he said yesterday. "I still want to cry because I'm that happy."
And so, Johnson and Waltrip will form an unlikely front-row duo - a determined champion and sinner redeemed - who will lead their respective 150-mile qualifying heats in Thursday's Gatorade Duels, which will determine spots 3 through 39 in the 43-car field.
"Obviously there is a lot of emphasis when you come to the Daytona 500 to sit on the pole," said crew chief Chad Knaus, who knows a thing or two about being a reformed NASCAR scofflaw after he was ejected two years ago and was forced to watch from home as Johnson went on to claim his first Daytona 500 triumph. "It is a neat thing; you are guaranteed a front-row starting spot. It is a week and a half that you can kind of walk around with your chest puffed up instead of just a day like a normal qualifying effort, so it is kind of cool."
What was particularly impressive about Johnson's pole-winning effort was that he did it in a car that, according to Knaus, "was relatively unproven."
"The guys at Hendrick Motorsports, everybody from the body department to the chassis department to our engine department, we came down here with, really, a car that we didn't have any prior track knowledge about," Knaus said. "The car actually, to right now, has a total of 12 timed laps on it on the race track . . . so we took a bit of a chance, but we thought the car was going to be good."
Johnson's car was fast enough, as it turned out, to bump Joe Nemechek off the pole and to withstand a late run by Waltrip, who put together a strong run on his first lap around the high-banked, 2 1/2-mile trioval. On his second lap, Waltrip figured he cost himself some speed - and quite possibly, the pole - when he "ran one foot higher off the bottom than what I normally had because my car was going faster," he said. "It was driving rougher."
So he adjusted, "and the car kind of bounced up higher than I wanted it to," he said. "Whether it lost a 10th or not, I don't know."
Not that it mattered. Waltrip had secured himself a spot in the race. And what was better, his car passed inspection.
"I love Mr. [Rick] Hendrick and I respect him," Waltrip said. "But there's no way they're as happy as me right now; I'm second [on the speed chart], but I'm first in happiness."
Michael Vega can be reached at vega@globe.com.
