Blaney gets first career pole Rockingham

It only took 113 tries, but today Dave Blaney is finally a Bud Pole winner. Blaney, who is in his third year in Winston Cup, posted a lap of 154.683 in the No. 77 Ford.

"We're loving it," said Blaney. "All the guys at the shop just worked and worked all night to get these new cars ready. We haven't had a chance to run it, and test it, nothing. So we're real excited for everybody. Booty [Barker] used to come in and he really got this group excited ."

Dave Blaney.

Photo by Autostock.

"We were a little bit scared coming in because we had a brand-new car that we had never tested or anything," continued Blaney "We had a lot of different stuff than we're used to running."

Blaney narrowly beat out Johnny Benson, who scored his first career victory at The Rock last fall. Benson will roll off in the second position.

Mark Martin, whose resume shows 2 Winston Cup and 11 Busch series victories will start third. Sterling Marlin and Bill Elliot round out the top five.

Wet weather pushed back qualifying several hours, completing just before 6:00 p.m. as darkness began to fall. Many race teams switched set-ups after the afternoon practice, with an 80% chance of rain Saturday may interfere with Cup happy hour.

Jerry Nadeau spun out on the first of his two qualifying laps, while Jeff Burton smashed into the wall on his warm up lap. Nadeau will start 24th and Burton will take a provisional and roll off 38th.

Winston Cup champion Tony Stewart starts 33rd. Among those taking provisional starts are Jimmie Johnson, Todd Bodine and Daytona 500 pole sitter Jeff Green.