WATKINS GLEN Gordon outlasts Biffle to win pole

A two-day test session helped him to map strategy and win a close battle.
By DAVID POOLE
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. -- Jeff Gordon was so good for so long at Watkins Glen International, he was highly frustrated last year when he started 22nd and finished 23rd in the Winston Cup race at this 2.45-mile road course.
"After last year, I was pretty intent on the fact that we were going to come here and test," Gordon said Friday after reasserting himself with a pole-winning lap at 124.580 mph for Sunday's Sirius at The Glen race.
Gordon, who had won races here in 1997, '98, '99 and 2001, said he paid particular attention during his two-day test session on improving his line into Turn 1 on this 11-turn course. That may have been accounted for the difference of 47-thousandths of a second he edged Greg Biffle by in the time trials.
"I think coming here paid off," Gordon said. "If we hadn't tested I probably wouldn't have been able to drive into Turn 1 the way I did in qualifying."
Exuded confidence
Biffle, a Winston Cup rookie who has a NASCAR Truck series victory here on his resume, exuded confidence in his Ford before his run and backed it up smartly with a lap at 124.497 mph on an overcast, cool day that presented perfect conditions for fast speeds in a session that ended just before a light rain began to fall.
"I knew it was going to be up to me not to make any mistakes on that lap, and I made one coming off Turn 4 over there," Biffle said. "I got up on the curb and got a little sideways. That's what cost me being on the pole today. I knew it was going to be something."
Both Biffle and Mark Martin, his Roush Racing teammate, also tested here. It was Martin, in fact, who drove Biffle's No. 16 Ford in qualifying trim during that test after Biffle left early to make an appearance in Oklahoma. "We used some of those notes, so it was a pretty dang good lap," Biffle said.
Pretty good lap
Martin had a pretty good lap, too, running 124.464 mph to earn the No. 3 starting spot for Sunday at a track where he won three straight poles and three straight races between 1993 and 1995.
"I didn't need a better car today to win the pole, I needed a better lap," Martin said. "It just came down to every inch of race track because there were opportunities to gain or lose. Either I didn't gain enough in area that I might have, or I lost a little bit too much in the areas that I did."
Tony Stewart, who won this race a year ago, was fourth fastest with Rusty Wallace, himself a two-time winner here, fifth. Dale Earnhardt Jr. will start sixth with Winston Cup points leader Matt Kenseth seventh.
Kurt Busch was eighth fastest, giving Roush Racing four of the top eight qualifiers. Jeff Burton, in the fifth Roush Ford, was 23rd.
Boris Said, who won the pole for this season's first road-course race at Sonoma, Calif., will start 10th. Fellow road-course specialist Ron Fellows will start 18th after a lap of 122.699 mph that was the slowest among the group that all broke Dale Jarrett's two-year-old track record.
Not everyone had good days on Friday, however.
Jimmy Spencer, driving the No. 7 Dodge, ventured off the course in the Turn 1 area that Gordon said was so important to his good lap.
"If this were off-road racing, we'd be on the pole," said Spencer, who was 46th fastest among 47 cars entered. "But it's not, and we're not. How many days until Bristol?"
Sterling Marlin, Ricky Craven, Spencer, Jeremy Mayfield, Steve Park, Tony Raines and Paul Menard got the provisionals.