AUTO RACING Gordon qualifies first for Bristol

The four-time Winston Cup champion set a qualifying record with his lap time.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BRISTOL, Tenn. -- Jeff Gordon's frustrating pursuit of his fifth Winston Cup title took a positive turn Friday when he won the pole for the Sharpie 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Gordon, quickest in the morning practice, pulled an early draw and turned a lap in 15.038 seconds around Bristol to break the event qualifying record of 15.292 seconds set by Rusty Wallace in 2000.
A brief thunderstorm then interrupted qualifying and Gordon was positive his time wouldn't stand once the session resumed.
It almost didn't.
Gordon's challengers
Mark Martin, one of the last cars to qualify, ran a lap at 15.039 seconds to just miss bumping Gordon off the pole.
Instead, they will start first and second in tonight's race.
"The whole day has been really great for us, but I didn't think that was my best lap," Gordon said. "And when that rain came, I thought for sure somebody was going to beat us."
Michael Waltrip qualified third, Mike Skinner was fourth and Kurt Busch, recipient of a Jimmy Spencer punch in the face last week in Michigan, qualified fifth.
Ryan Newman, who has a series-high five victories this season, qualified sixth. Ted Musgrave, filling in for Spencer while he sits out a one-week NASCAR suspension, was seventh.
Ricky Rudd qualified eighth and Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Winston Cup points leader Matt Kenseth rounded out the top 10.
Kenseth currently holds a 329-point advantage over Earnhardt in the standings and Gordon is in third, 461 points back.
BRISTOL, Tenn. (AP) -- Winston Cup regular Michael Waltrip used a slight bump-and-run to knock Ron Hornaday out of his way Friday night and went on to win the Busch Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Waltrip led earlier in the Food City 250, only to lose the spot to Hornaday when he struggled on a restart.
But he was in position to regain it with 34 laps to go as he followed Hornaday around and around the high-banked .533-mile bullring. As the two cars headed into turn four, Waltrip pulled up on Hornaday's bumper and tapped him just enough to loosen him up.
Waltrip then slid low and drove past him, holding on for his first Busch Series win of the year and first since last August at Michigan.
Previous Bristol win
Waltrip's only other Busch Series Bristol win was in April, 1993, two days after Winston Cup champion Alan Kulwicki was killed in a plane crash. He celebrated that win with one of Kulwicki's trademark "Polish Victory Laps" and repeated it Friday night by circling the track in reverse direction.
"I did that Victory Lap for Alan 10 years ago, and I did it again tonight, so that's pretty cool," said Waltrip, who then made a lame attempt at a headstand in Victory Lane.
Hornaday finished second.
"I knew he was going to move me over, he had fresher tires and was a little faster than me," Hornaday said. "I think I could have roughed him up, but that ain't racing."
Ted Musgrave finished third, Shane Hmiel was fourth and Kevin Harvick fifth.
CART
MONTREAL -- Paul Tracy and Bruno Junqueira sat on either side of Oriol Servia looking unhappy.
A precious point had slipped through their hands in Friday's provisional qualifying for the Montreal Molson Indy, and both of the top contenders in the CART Champ Car championship were frustrated.
Servia, a Spaniard in his fourth season in the series, was guaranteed the first front-row start of his career when he turned a fast lap of 1-minute, 21.112-seconds (120.234 mph) to take the provisional pole for Sunday's race.