NASCAR's Burton Best At Brickyard So Far

 

Brickyard's best
Burton grabs rare pole for Allstate 400 at Indy

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- Jeff Burton and rookie Clint Bowyer gave Richard Childress Racing a sweep of the front row Saturday in qualifying for the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard.

Burton, who has driven in each of the 12 previous NASCAR races at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway without qualifying higher than 16th, made an early lap of 182.778 mph stand up for his third pole of the season and only the fifth of a career that began in 1993.

"I think I left a little bit out there," said Burton, who along with Bowyer had to leave the track immediately after the Nextel Cup time trials to practice for Saturday night's Busch Series race at nearby O'Reilly Raceway Park.

Burton was the second of 50 drivers who tried to qualify for the 43 Brickyard starting spots, so he didn't really know what it was going to take to stay on top with the track getting hotter and more slippery as the session went on.

"I ran as hard as I thought I could run and come back," Burton said. "I was a little bit conservative in a few places that if somebody has a little more confidence, they might be able to do better than that."

Nobody did.

Bowyer went out seventh and posted a lap of 182.771. Kurt Busch, who was 25th in the qualifying line, wound up third at 182.752. The top three laps were separated by just seven-thousandths of a second. more on Jeff Burton winning the Indy pole