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Saturday, February 24
Gordon dedicates pole to Earnhardt
ESPN.com news services
ROCKINGHAM, N.C. -- Once his rival, never his best friend, Jeff Gordon was one of many NASCAR Winston Cup Series drivers who paid tribute to Dale Earnhardt in Saturday's qualifying for Sunday's Dura Lube 400 at North Carolina Speedway.
While the attention still focused on Earnhardt, who was killed in the last turn of the last lap of last Sunday's Daytona 500, Gordon won the pole with a lap at 156.455 mph in a Chevrolet.
|  | | Jeff Gordon, right, walks through the pits at Rockingham, N.C., after he won the pole for Sunday's Dura Lube 400. |
"Definitely, something was missing when we got to the garage here this morning, but there was also an extra boost of power behind all of this to go out there and do our job," Gordon said. "Once I got in the car, it was the best feeling I had all week. I enjoyed getting back in the race car. My team did a great job preparing this today and everything was totally different. The car did a lot of things I wasn't expecting it to do."
Gordon's lap was far below Rusty Wallace's track-qualifying record of 158.035 mph, set Feb. 25, 2000.
"I'm wearing this 3 cap to let everyone know I'm thinking of Dale and how much I respected him and how much I'm missing him," Gordon said. "We weren't fishing buddies, we weren't guys who called one another all of the time, but he was somebody that I respected greatly."
It was Gordon's 34th career pole in 259 races. His most recent pole came at Atlanta in November 2000, two races earlier.
It was also his 15th top-10 qualifying effort and second pole in 17 races at Rockingham, including the last 13 races. Gordon has posted six top-five finishes, including four victories in his 16 previous races at Rockingham.
"We have had great qualifying efforts here," Gordon said. "Even though I only have one pole here, we have always been pretty close to the front. Today had a lot to do with a lot of things."
Gordon used his first lap to warm up his tires and his second lap to put down the top speed of the day. It was enough to knock Steve Park, who drives for Dale Earnhardt Inc., off the pole. Park ran a lap at 156.395 mph in a Chevrolet.
Defending Winston Cup champion Bobby Labonte was third at 156.068 mph in a Pontiac, Ricky Rudd was fourth at 155.068 mph in a Ford and Jeff Burton followed at 155.571 mph in another Ford.
"I learned a lot from him, more than he ever imagined," Gordon said. "If you beat him at Daytona or Talladega, your whole world would change; your whole confidence level would change because he was the absolute best.
"I'm not going to pretend I was his best friend, because I wasn't. He had a lot of things in his life that were different than mine, but the business of racing brought us together a lot. We always looked up to him because he was the leader of our industry."
Earnhardt was the hero of the racing heroes -- the man that everyone in the sport looked up to for guidance and to measure one's ability.
"When I was a kid growing up, Steve Kinser was my hero," Gordon said of the World of Outlaws champion. "As I got into this sport, Dale Earnhardt became that hero. I never knew how great he was as a race car driver and I was able to be around him enough to know that he was also a very good person.
"Absolutely, any race car driver would tell you he was their hero because he was so good at so many different things and so comfortable in his ability in that race car."
Gordon's fondest memory of Earnhardt came in an IROC race, not a Winston Cup event, when he was side-by-side with Ken Schrader on the back straightaway and Earnhardt was behind them.
"For some reason, I just decided to look over at Schrader and he was looking straight ahead, real focused and he wasn't going to lift," Gordon said. "I looked to the left and Dale was just beaming with a smile, looking over at me grinning. He was just having a ball out there. That's the way he was. He was so comfortable in his environment. That smile meant he was having fun, but he also knew he wasn't going to lift and I was going to lift and I did."
Saturday was the first on-track activity for the NASCAR Winston Cup series since Earnhardt's death. The bright sunshine helped overcome the grim atmosphere that has hung over this sport for the past week.
Gordon is a man of deep religious faith, but he admits a strong sense of disbelief when he heard that Earnhardt was dead.
"I'm still feeling disbelief," Gordon said. "Faith doesn't mean you don't think it's true, you hope and pray that person's heart and mind was right with God and they are smiling down upon us right now.
"Although Dale Earnhardt was very private with it, I believe he is in that place and that allows the family and friends to be able to get through such a difficult time." Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories
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