NASCAR Nadeau critically injured in crash

The driver was airlifted from the track after Terry Labonte won the pole.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- Terry Labonte won his first pole in more than three years in qualifying before Jerry Nadeau was critically injured in a crash while practicing Friday at Richmond International Raceway.
Nadeau, who qualified 12th, was airlifted from the track with what doctors said was "the potential for serious injuries" after slamming his Pontiac into the wall.
NASCAR spokesman Jim Hunter said Nadeau was in critical condition at the nearby Medical College of Virginia Hospitals.
Hunter provided no specific information on Nadeau's injuries. He said the hospital was prevented from saying more while awaiting the arrival of the driver's wife, Jada, who was traveling from South Carolina after attending her grandfather's funeral. NASCAR sent a plane to pick her up.
Roof cut
Rescue crews cut the roof off Nadeau's car to get him out. NASCAR spokesman Jim Hunter said the 32-year-old driver from Danbury, Conn., was alive at the time, but he didn't know if Nadeau was conscious.
When practice resumed, Busch series driver Jason Keller drove Nadeau's backup car.
Earlier, Labonte was surprised when the 126.511-mph lap he posted early in the session withstood challenges from 31 other drivers. It is his 27th career pole and first on the three-quarter-mile oval since 1997.
"After I qualified, I thought, 'Well, that probably could be a top 10,' " the two-time Winston Cup champion said. "Then, when I was sitting there watching, I thought, 'Gosh, this could probably be a top five.'
"Then I got kind of nervous for the last two. I thought, 'I'm going to be kind of mad if these two guys beat us. It's so close up there.' "
Labonte's Chevrolet bumped that of Hendrick Motorsports teammate Joe Nemechek to the outside of the front row for tonight's Pontiac Excitement 400. Nemechek's fast lap was 126.369.
"I would have been happy to get a top-10," Labonte said.
Nemechek, like Labonte, said his car was fast all day long.
"We made quite a few changes today. We made a lot of run," Nemechek said. "Every change we made, it seemed to make the car faster."
Driver error
Only driver error might have cost Nemechek a shot at the pole.
"My first lap was my fast lap and the second one I didn't drive it quite hard enough to go any faster," he said. "But that is one of those things you do here. If you drive it too hard, sometimes you go slower."
Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Bobby Labonte qualified in the second row, giving Chevys a sweep of the top four positions. Ryan Newman was fifth in a Dodge.
The Hendrick team wound up with four qualifiers in the top 10. Four-time series champion Jeff Gordon -- twice a Richmond winner -- will start sixth, and Jimmie Johnson will line up 10th in the 43-car field.
Winston Cup champion Tony Stewart, the winner of this race the last two years and a three-time winner here overall, qualified ninth. Chevys took seven of the first 10 spots.
Kurt Busch, the winner last week in Fontana, Calif., wound up seventh in a Ford. Kyle Petty was eighth in a Dodge.
Earnhardt, who trails series leader Matt Kenseth by 44 points after 10 races, had the car to beat after practice, but wasn't quite able to back it up.
"We were just a couple hundredths [of a second] from getting the pole, and I think I could go back over my lap and know exactly where I lost it," he said, adding that his car was too loose going through the third turn.
The track showed no signs of the water seepage that delayed Busch series qualifying for 3 hours, 40 minutes Thursday. Hunter said crews worked until almost 2 a.m. cutting grooves in the track to aid in draining the surface.
Kenseth qualified 18th.