Best Buy 400 Qualifying Update

Dover International Speedway -- 06/01/08

Author: Becca Gladden

Published: Saturday May 31 2008 11:26pm

It seems like it's been a long time since we've had a typical weekend schedule for the Sprint Cup series, with a practice session on Friday followed by qualifying, two Saturday practices, and a Sunday race.

Looking at all three practice sessions and qualifying collectively, it's pretty clear who a few of the frontrunners are for the "Best Buy 400 benefiting Student Clubs for Autism Speaks."

Three drivers - Jeff Gordon (+785), Kyle Busch (+455), and Jimmie Johnson (+505) - were in the top 10 across the board (all practices plus qualifying) in preparation for Sunday's race.

Gordon led the first practice and qualified 7th, while his Hendrick teammate Johnson qualified 4th and paced both Saturday practices. Busch, meanwhile, ran 4th, 2nd, and 3rd in the three practices and qualified 3rd as well.

As you know, teams will often make adjustments and try things in practice that drops them out of the top 10 in terms of lap times, but that does not necessarily mean they won't be fast in the race.

Such is likely the case with Greg Biffle (+635), who captured the pole with a 155.219 mile per hour, 23.193 lap - almost two-tenths faster than outside pole sitter Kurt Busch (+2250) with a 23.381. Biffle ran 3rd in practice on Friday and 5th Saturday morning, but dropped to 17th in Happy Hour - a rain-shortened session that probably doesn't mean much in the overall picture.

Asked Friday about his team's improved qualifying efforts recently, Biffle said, "It’s funny. The less time we spend on qualifying, the better we qualify, and I can’t explain that at all. We knew that weather was a threat for practice tomorrow, so we made the decision as a team to spend the entire time today working on race runs. It’s sort of a double-edged sword because right at the end of practice we tried a little bit different spring in the front of the car and it picked the car up about a tenth of a lap. So we really liked it and we left that spring in to qualify and, ironically, it probably picked the speed up qualifying. So we stayed in race trim longer than we did. We only switched over with about seven to nine minutes left in practice. We made one qualifying run and were third on the speed chart. The guys went back and made some adjustments to it, and kind of paid attention on pit road to what everyone was saying, and made a tire adjustment before I went out to qualify. I’m telling you, the car was absolutely perfect. The car was just perfect.”

Perhaps the biggest advantage of Biffle's pole run will be pitting in the first stall, which should make getting on and off this narrow pit road a bit easier and could prove to be a competitive advantage by the end of the day.

Biffle's teammate at Roush-Fenway Racing, Carl Edwards (+595), ran 2nd, 6th, and 4th in the practices. Edwards will start the race 14th.

The top four drivers in qualifying happen to be one each from the four Cup series manufacturers, with Biffle in a Ford, Kurt Busch in a Dodge, Kyle Busch in a Toyota, and Jimmie Johnson in a Chevy.

In an interesting bit of trivia, Johnson and Kyle Busch are currently the only drivers who have 10 top-10 starts this season.

Approximately 78% of all Dover races have been won from a top 10 starting spot, although last year's winner, Martin Truex Jr., started 26th.

Rounding out the top 10 on the starting grid are Jamie McMurray, Brian Vickers, Jeff Gordon, A.J. Allmendinger, Elliott Sadler, and Jeremy Mayfield.

Allmendinger and Mayfield were both go-or-go-homers and this is Mayfield's first race since leaving the No. 70 car after the April race in Texas. Mayfield is filling in this week for the injured Dario Franchitti in the No. 40.

Jason Leffler and Chad McCumbee failed to qualify, while Sam Hornish was the fastest rookie, qualifying 16th.

Further back in the field will be Mark Martin (+3250), starting 30th, Denny Hamlin (+1215), starting 33rd, Kevin Harvick (+3550), starting 34th, and Jeff Burton (+3550), starting 38th. Though he qualified poorly, Hamlin ran 2nd in Happy Hour Saturday and also won the Nationwide race.

That NWS race was rain-delayed for about three hours, but Sunday's forecast calls for sunny and quite warm with temperatures in the low 80s, which should make for a super slick surface.

Bettors looking for a bit of a sleeper pick might consider Ryan Newman, currently at +2550. Newman has the second-best average finish at Dover with a 10.0 (Carl Edwards' is 9.1), and has won here three times. He was 9th, 10th, and 8th in the practices and just missed the top 10 in qualifying at 11th. His teammate, Kurt Busch, will start in P2.