DOVER, Del. — Running near the end of the qualifying line, Jimmie Johnson knocked Juan Pablo Montoya off the pole Friday at Dover.
Johnson’s 154.765-mile-per-hour run in the second Car of Tomorrow race at the Monster Mile was not a record.
Denny Hamlin, Kurt Busch and Martin Truex, Jr., all participants in The Chase for the Nextel Cup, were second through fifth on the grid, while Scott Riggs, a non-qualifier at New Hampshire Int’l Speedway the previous weekend, was sixth and fastest of those required to qualify on their time.
Other Chasers were scattered through the field, with Kevin Harvick seventh, Matt Kenseth 10th, Carl Edwards 15th, Kyle Busch 22nd, Jeff Gordon 27th, Tony Stewart 28th, Jeff Burton 36th, and Clint Bowyer, the dominant force all weekend at NHIS, 42nd after posting the slowest qualifying time.
Behind Riggs among the go-or-go-home brigade, star performers were Toyota drivers A.J. Allmendinger in 11th, David Reutimann 15th and Dale Jarrett 19th.
Sam Hornish, Jr. again failed to make the cut in his second Nextel Cup attempt for Penske Racing.

• Not only was Montoya the top finishing rookie, he was the only Dodge in the top 10 of the Dodge Dealers 400.

• Kenny Wallace again substituted for Ricky Rudd in the No. 88 Ford amid speculation that Rudd’s separated shoulder may sideline him for the remainder of the season leading into his announced retirement. Rudd had never previously missed a race due to injury in his 31-year career.

• Art Harris, the gasman for Michael Waltrip who was injured by the errant wheel hit on pit road by David Ragan, was transported for evaluation to a local hospital but released before the race ended.
Dover, has no tunnel under the track, a caution flag waved at lap 149 to permit the ambulance to cross the track.

• Dover does have two bridges, one over the exit to turn two for crossing pedestrians and a newer structure at the entrance to turn three for which premium admission is sold. The Monster Bridge ticket holders got their money’s worth as the big accident on lap 386 happened virtually at their feet.

• Team owner Chip Ganassi all but confirmed Dario Franchitti’s 2008 move to his Nextel Cup team at a Sunday morning press conference, stating that some details remained to be worked out.
Reportedly Canadian Club will accompany the Indy 500 winner and IRL champion to NASCAR, joining Jack Daniels and Jim Beam in the distilled spirits category of sponsorship, which used to be off limits in NASCAR racing.

• Robby Gordon’s Jim Beam Ford arrived painted black with an orange No. 7, a strikingly similar paint job to the Geoff Bodine QVC Fords of the mid-1990s.

• The question was asked in the press box — was this 400 mile race as long as the 500 mile Dover marathons held at Dover until 1997?
The answer is yes and no. The Dodge Dealers 400 ran 3 hours, 55 minutes on the race clock, while the shortest 500-miler was 3:58 by Bill Elliott in 1990. But if you add the 18 minutes of red flag time, it was about at the short end of average for the longer distance races.

• No car owner gained entry to the top 35 in the standings required for a qualifying exemption next week in Kansas City, but the Wood Brothers No. 21 moved with in one point of Kyle Petty’s No. 45 for 34th. Meanwhile, Dave Blaney’s failure to qualify dropped Bill Davis No. 22 to 105 points below the cutoff.

• Presenting a Nextel Cup weekend is a daunting task under the best of circumstances. NASCAR and Dover track officials were presented with a totally unpredictable obstacle hours before the gates opened Friday when a shooting incident on the campus of Delaware State University, right across Route 13 from the track, wounded two students and sent the campus into lockdown. With the Virginia Tech tragedy still a recent memory, the story made national news wires instantly.
The track issued a press release stating that the weekend’s racing events would not be affected, which turned out to be correct. Meanwhile, DSU earned wide praise for its effective response.
The two very different institutions, DSU and Dover Downs, have a long history of cooperation in event scheduling and use of one another’s parking facilities.

• The first effect seen from last week’s Dale Earnhardt, Jr. number change and sponsorship announcement was a fire sale on Budweiser/No. 8 apparel at the track. A veteran shopper on souvenir row reported Bud-8 hats for sale at $5 and hooded sweatshirts for $15. That’s about a 75-pecent discount on each item. With Dale, Jr. merchandise estimated to account for up to 30 percent of NASCAR souvenir sales, the cash register will ring when the Earnhardt Nation stocks up on the new gear. That will have to wait for the expiration of his Budweiser contract.