Blaney is pole-sitter for Lenox Tools 300

It represented the first pole position for Toyota.

LOUDON, N.H. (AP) — Hartford native Dave Blaney finally gave Toyota something to celebrate Friday, winning the pole for the NASCAR Nextel Cup race at New Hampshire International Speedway.

It’s been a long, difficult first season in Cup for the Japanese automaker. Its teams have had trouble getting their cars qualified for races, let alone vying for poles.

But Blaney’s fast lap of 129.437 mph in his Bill Davis Racing No. 22 Camry was easily the fastest in qualifying for Sunday’s Lenox Industrial Tools 300.

Maybe an indicator

“The first pole for Toyota and, hopefully, that’s one step in a lot of successful days as far as poles and wins and the whole thing,” Blaney said. “I think we’ve been making some progress in getting some speed out of the cars; I think all the Toyota teams have.

“Brian Vickers has had some real good runs lately, as well. The Toyota side is definitely making ground like we knew it would.”

The news wasn’t all good for Toyota, though.

Vickers, who drives for the new Red Bull Racing team and has Toyota’s best race finish — fifth last month at Charlotte — had his qualifying lap disallowed when his car failed post-qualifying inspection. Officials said the car was too low on the left side.

That put the Chevrolet of Chad Chaffin in the field and left Toyota with just three of its seven cars in the 43-car lineup.

The other two were Jeremy Mayfield, driving the second Davis entry, and Michael Waltrip Racing rookie David Reutimann.

Along with Vickers, Waltrip, former series champion Dale Jarrett and rookie A.J. Allmendinger failed to make the field.

Previous best qualifying

Blaney, whose seventh-place qualifying run at Bristol in March was the previous best for Toyota in qualifying, earned his second career pole and first since February 2003 at North Carolina Motor Speedway in Rockingham.

“We’ve had a very trying year, lots of trouble and lots of DNFs [did not finish] and it’s been tough,” Blaney noted.

“We’ve been outside the top 35 [in points] and you can’t concentrate on races when you’ve got to concentrate on getting into them. This is a big confidence booster for the whole team.”

Kurt Busch, whose Penske Racing team hurriedly replaced the brakes after the 2004 Cup champion felt a vibration in his Dodge when he first drove onto the 1.058-mile New Hampshire oval, wound up second at 129.182.

Reed Sorenson was third at 128.589, followed by Johnny Sauter at 128.502.

Next was rookie Juan Pablo Montoya, coming off his first Cup win last Sunday on the road course at Sonoma, at 128.411 and Dale Earnhardt Jr. at 128.389.

Rounding out the top 10 were Kevin Harvick at 128.372, series points leader Jeff Gordon at 128.350, Martin Truex Jr. at 128.329 and reigning Cup champion Jimmie Johnson at 128.316.

Suspension saga

Hendrick Motorsports teammates Gordon and Johnson are racing this week with interim crew chiefs after Steve Letarte and Chad Knaus were suspended by NASCAR for six weeks for technical violations found on their cars last week at Sonoma.

The drivers were docked 100 points each, and their crew chiefs were fined $100,000 apiece.

The difficulty for Toyota entering NASCAR’s top series this year has been compounded by the introduction of the Car of Tomorrow, which is being run in 16 of 36 races this season.

Toyota teams had to build a whole fleet of both the older car and the COT, and they have struggled with both.

Blaney said the Davis team tested the COTs it brought for this race earlier this week at Thompson Speedway in Connecticut.

“We just needed laps in the Car of Tomorrow, really,” he said.

“We’re probably behind in testing that car compared to some of the other teams. We felt like we did learn some things over there and brought them over here.

“The car was just flawless all day. We were fast in practice and didn’t do much to it all day long and just repeated in qualifying. Smooth day. Hope it goes that smooth all weekend.”