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Champ Johnson Earns 500 Pole

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By TONY FABRIZIO | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 11, 2008

Updated: 02/10/2008 11:55 pm

DAYTONA BEACH - Jimmie Johnson posted some of the fastest speeds of Daytona's preseason testing, but the car he drove wasn't good enough for crew chief Chad Knaus.

Knaus took the data gleaned from testing back to Hendrick Motorsports' headquarters, where engineers used computers and a $1 million machine called a seven-post shaker rig to design a new car.

Sunday, two-time defending Sprint Cup champion Johnson put that new No. 48 Chevy on the pole for the 50th Daytona 500, posting a one-lap speed of 187.075 mph.

Michael Waltrip took the outside pole in his Toyota a year after being embarrassed in a cheating scandal, and the two local drivers in NASCAR's top division - Lakeland's Joe Nemechek and Zephyrhills' David Reutimann - locked up 500 starting positions by posting the third- and fourth-fastest speeds.

Johnson's pole for the season's biggest race came less than 24 hours after Hendrick - which won half of the races last year - opened the season with a victory in the non-points Bud Shootout with Dale Earnhardt Jr.

"That car unloaded off the truck Saturday fresh - not a scratch on it," Knaus said of Johnson's new car. "It hit the racetrack and was the best car in practice. We've got about 550 teammates at Hendrick Motorsports, and when you have that many people that are true-blue racers all pulling in one direction, it's pretty difficult to beat them."

Team owner Rick Hendrick also said the pole was a company effort.

"The pole is something the guys work for all winter," he said. "Winter testing was good, and Chad and the guys came back and backed up their test and actually picked up speed with a new car. It's a good place to be, knowing you're going to be on the pole for the Daytona 500."

Under the convoluted qualifying format for the 500, only the front-row starting positions were assigned Sunday. However, drivers who finished in the top 35 in the owners standings last year are assured of starting somewhere in Sunday's race, as are Nemechek and Reutimann because positions 40-42 are awarded on speed.

Thursday's two 150-mile qualifying races will decide where everybody starts between positions three and 39 and which drivers get in among those who still don't have spots locked up.

Waltrip was one of those drivers who didn't have a spot before Sunday, but now he's assured of starting second.

That's a far cry from where he was at this time last year, when NASCAR officials discovered a foreign substance in his intake manifold after qualifying. Waltrip's car was impounded and two members of his team, vice president for competition Bobby Kennedy and crew chief David Hyder, were suspended indefinitely.

The incident was humiliating for Waltrip because his team was starting a new relationship with Toyota and was competing for the first time with three teams in NASCAR's top division.

"I can't tell you how many dollars were lost and how much credibility was taken away with that a year ago," Waltrip said Sunday. "I had to work really hard over the last year to try to prove we were worthy of this opportunity."

A year ago Thursday, Waltrip held an emotional news conference in which he denied knowledge that his team tried to cheat. He then went out in his 150-qualifying race in a backup car and earned one of the two "transfer" spots into the 500. After Daytona, though, Waltrip went 11 consecutive races without qualifying.

Kennedy returned to work at MWR last June, but Hyder and another team member, Dean Johnson, were fired. Both are now at BAM Racing.

Waltrip said Sunday his team's internal investigation never uncovered the full story of what happened.

"We didn't have any surveillance cameras or never found a smoking gun that directly implicated anyone," he said. "But we do feel like we know the persons that had the access to do that and were responsible for those areas of the cars, and they're no longer with us.

"Bobby Kennedy was overseeing the cars, but he didn't have the ability to stick anything in the fuel line or the fuel filter or whatever happened. And everyone at MWR knew that Bobby and I stood for not messing with the Toyota engine or the car."

Nemechek, driving for unheralded Furniture Row Racing, and Reutimann, driving for Waltrip, can start higher than 40th Sunday if they pick up "transfer" spots in Thursday's qualifiers.

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