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TALLADEGA, Ala. -- It's been all about Tony Stewart at Talladega Superspeedway, where he's planted himself inside the spotlight by entering free agency.
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He's backed up the high level of interest being shown in NASCAR's two-time champion with strong runs on the race track, including a stout qualifying lap Saturday that seemed to lock down the pole position.
Some three hours later, Joe Nemechek stole his thunder.
Nemechek, the 46th of 47 drivers to make a qualifying attempt, knocked Stewart off the pole with a lap of 187.386 mph. It was the first pole since 2005, a span of 93 races, for "Front Row Joe," and was his fourth career pole at Talladega -- best among active drivers.
Nemechek credited his Furniture Row Racing team, a single-car operation based out of Denver that prepared a car that had to qualify on speed to make Sunday's race. Nemechek is ranked 42nd in the points, and has missed two of eight races this season.
"It takes a lot of work and a lot of innovative thinking to get your cars to go fast, and to get them through the air," Nemechek said. "And it's paying attention to all the details. The cool thing about us is we're just a small team. We don't have that many employees.
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| Joe Nemechek, the 46th of 47 drivers to attempt qualifying, claims his first pole since 2005. (Getty Images) |
Stewart, a six-time runner-up at Talladega, had to settle for the second starting spot. He was the seventh driver to make his lap, and his 186.896 held almost the entire session. He's now qualified inside the top 10 in eight of his 19 Talladega starts, but is still searching for his first win at the track.
Talladega is one of just four tracks where Stewart has yet to score a win.
"It is important to me," he said. "We've run second here six times in nine years, so a third of the races here I've run second. I'm ready to get one more spot finally."
Ken Schrader, the final driver to make his qualifying attempt, grabbed the third spot. Driving in his first race for Haas-CNC Racing, which has used a revolving door of drivers since
He then joked that NASCAR had to scramble to print his nameplate in time for the post-qualifying news conference. His start Sunday will be his first Cup race since Texas last November.
"We knew we had a decent race car yesterday. We thought it ought to be a solid top 10, but you don't know what everybody else is running because they had the advantage of being able to do a little drafting practice," Schrader said. "We did some stuff for qualifying that we'll probably have to undo, but first thing first and that was to be in the (race) for sure."
