Young Newman To Start Up Front In Old Dominion 500

MARTINSVILLE, VA. – One of NASCAR Winston Cup’s youngest racers conquered the circuit’s oldest track Friday afternoon. Now Ryan Newman faces an even bigger challenge – staying out front in Sunday’s Old Dominion 500 at Martinsville Speedway.

Newman, a 25-year-old rookie, toured the .526-mile oval in 20.397 seconds to capture the pole for Sunday’s Old Dominion 500. It was the fourth pole of the season for Newman, who is fourth in the Winston Cup points standings.

“We’ve had a great season,” said the Ford driver “The guys have done an awesome job in the shop and out of the shop … on the race track and off. I’m just happy to have had the qualifying effort we had today.

“It’s important to start up front at every race track, but it’s more important sometimes on the shorter tracks. I’m looking forward to Sunday and looking forward to getting in race trim and hopefully, we can be just as fast then.”

Newman went out late in the qualifying session and knocked Jeff Gordon off the pole. Gordon wound up second in qualifying, just a tick behind Gordon. Gordon had a lap of 20.420 seconds or 92.733 mph in his Chevrolet.

“I love Martinsville. I’m really thrilled that we had a good strong finish today,” said Gordon, who has three race wins at Martinsville. “I guess going out early and setting the mark, you get your hopes up. A heck of a lap that Ryan put out there. I watched him, he was smooth and laid the power down nice and made a good lap. I knew we were in trouble when I saw his first lap.”

Round out the top five qualifiers were Bill Elliott in third and Ward Burton in fourth, both in Dodges, and Rusty Wallace fifth in a Ford.

Winston Cup points leader Tony Stewart is mired well back in the back after qualifying 31st.

Joe Nemechek was a bit of a surprise in his Chevrolet in sixth, followed by Jimmy Johnson, also in a Chevrolet.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the day was Hermie Sadler, who qualified eighth. Sadler is not a regular on the circuit, and has only four fulltime employees, but out-qualified the likes of Dale Earnhardt Jr. (10th), Kevin Harvick (13th), and Dale Jarrett (15th).

“This is a big effort for my guys,” said Sadler. “We’ve got four full-time people; we’re a small group; and it says a lot for us. Martinsville is a place that anybody can run good. All the aero and all the motor we may be lacking doesn’t hurt us that much here. We’ve got a good car here; the same car we had in the spring and it raced good. I just started too far back.

Action returns to Martinsville Speedway Saturday with the running of the Advance Auto Parts 200 NASCAR Featherlite Modified Tour event at 2 p.m. Tickets are $30.

Sunday’s Old Dominion 500 is sold out, but will be televised live on NBC at 12:30 p.m.