Johnson Rebounds On Tricky Triangle, Moves To Seventh In Points

LONG POND, Pa. — Apparently even Mother Nature can be a member of the Earnhardt Nation.
Dale Earnhardt, Jr. was on the track to make his qualifying run Friday at Pocono Raceway when a light shower hit the speedway, delaying the proceedings and giving Earnhardt a rerun. With cooler conditions promoting more grip and more horsepower, the Budweiser Chevrolet knocked Kurt Busch’s Miller Dodge off the pole. Earnhardt turned a lap of 169.975 miles per hour.
Like his late father, Earnhardt has never been known as much of a time trial exponent, preferring to concentrate his practice time on race setups. It was only his seventh pole and his first since Kansas Speedway in September 2002.  
Non-qualifiers were Mike Bliss, A.J. Allendinger, Kevin Lepage and Kenny Wallace.

• It’s likely that most NSSN readers have seen the video of Robby Gordon’s antics at the Montreal Busch Series race Saturday, so we’ll skip the play by play. Sunday morning garage talk at Pocono was dominated by the Gordon affair, which resulted in his being parked for the Pennsylvania 500, with P.J. Jones taking over the Menard’s Ford.
Sirius Satellite Radio talk show host Dave Moody reported every call to his program concerned Robby Gordon, leaving usual subjects of fans’ worship and/or venom like Jeff Gordon, Earnhardt and Kyle Busch with a free pass for the morning.

• Does size really matter?
In the wake of the Ginn Racing acquisition by Dale Earnhardt, Inc., there has been much talk show and Internet comment that four cars would now be necessary to field a competitive Nextel Cup team.
Pocono winning crew chief Pat Tryson, who saw the growth of Roush Racing  (now Roush Fenway) into a five-car colossus from the inside, offered this opinion after his first win with Penske Racing, whose two Nextel Cup cars equal its entries in the Indy Car Series and American LeMans Series: “Teammates are important, but they need to be the right teammates. Four cars are better than two if everyone is working together.”
He lauded the non-NASCAR people in Penske’s North Carolina shop, which house all three series efforts, for their assistance, singling out Tim Cindric, who was an Indy Car engineer before taking on executive duties. Tryson and Kurt Busch were booked on a 5:30 a.m. Monday corporate flight to Road Atlanta for pre-Watkins Glen road course testing.  
 
• Jimmie Johnson gained two places in the Nextel Cup standings after Pocono, and Kevin Harvick lost two spots as they swapped seventh and ninth places. The biggest gainer in the point race was Ricky Rudd, up three places from 29th to 26th. Only the Busch-Earnhardt exchange of 12th place really mattered however, as Johnson and Harvick are solidly in The Chase and Rudd is even more solidly out of The Chase.

• The absence of the Joe Nemechek and Sterling Marlin entries from the closed-down part of the Ginn Racing operation may have thrown a lifeline to beleaguered Michael Waltrip Racing. Both the owner and Dale Jarrett were able to qualify their Toyotas on time in the last two guaranteed starting spots, i.e., positions not affected by the past champion’s provisional which turned out not to be needed.

• ESPN reported Monday evening that Kyle Busch would sign with Joe Gibbs Racing and replace J.J. Yeley behind the wheel of the Interstate Batteries Chevrolet next season.
There is no word yet on where Yeley may end up in 2008.
 
• Finally, it’s time for our annual Gauge of the Gouge, surveying gas prices in the vicinity of the track. For those not familiar with Pocono geography, the vast majority of arriving fans use Route 115 south from I-80, where there is one gas station, although it’s hard to see the pumps behind the phalanx of souvenir vendors. Fewer fans make their way north of I-80 to the village of Blakeslee, a mile away, where there are three stations. Unleaded regular on the heavily traveled route south was posted at $3.19, while in Blakeslee it was $2.86 if paid with cash. That’s a 33-cent differential for a two-minute drive.