INDIANAPOLIS - Some big names in recent Indianapolis Motor Speedway history will start toward the front in Sunday's Allstate 400, but a big name in the NASCAR world might be the one worth watching in one of the season's biggest Nextel Cup events.
Chip Ganassi, the triumphant car owner here in 2000 when Juan Pablo Montoya won the Indianapolis 500 in his first try, has 21-year-old Reed Sorenson on the pole after a lap at 184.207 mph. Montoya, meanwhile, starts on the outside of Row 1 while David Stremme, in Ganassi's other car, starts 10th.
Roger Penske, whose cars have won a record 14 Indy 500s, will also have two cars in the first three rows as Dodge took the top three, five of the top six and eight of the top 17 starting spots in Saturday's late afternoon qualifying.
But while that open-wheel heritage created quite the buzz around this massive facility, this is a stock-car event. So the fact that Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Chevrolet was fourth fastest at 183.419 mph as the first car on track for qualifying is also a big deal.
"We have a really comfortable car, and it's fast," Earnhardt Jr. said. "I want to run well. I want to win and I'm going to try real, real hard."
Earnhardt Jr., frankly, needs to win. He's currently 12th in the Nextel Cup standings, which puts him on the bubble for making the Chase for the Nextel Cup with seven races to go before that 12-car field is settled for this year's championship run.
Earnhardt Jr. last won 45 races ago at Richmond in May 2006.
"We've been in such a dry spell I'd just take a win however and wherever we could get it," Earnhardt Jr. said. "But it would be pretty damn awesome to get it here."
Earnhardt's father, the late seven-time Nextel Cup champion, won here in 1995 in the second year of NASCAR competition here, following the first of Jeff Gordon's four Indy wins in the inaugural. Gordon starts 21st on Sunday.
It seemed logical that going out first would be a disadvantage for Earnhardt Jr. after rain Friday forced qualifying to be moved from 10 a.m. until Saturday afternoon. Lingering moisture in the morning shoved the schedule back even more, and it was 5:30 p.m. before the No. 8 Chevrolet led off the session.
Earnhardt Jr. said he made a mistake and gave up some time on his lap, and when Sorenson went out next and went two-tenths of a second faster it seemed that might be the start of a slide down in the eventual starting lineup.
But only Montoya, who ran 183.494 mph, and Penske driver Ryan Newman, who went 183.475 mph eventually went faster.
Things have been going well for Ganassi, whose stock-car team is co-owned by Felix Sabates, in recent days. Montoya got his first career Cup win at Infineon Raceway less than a month ago, while Sorenson got a Busch Series victory last weekend. Scott Dixon, meanwhile, has won the past three Indy Racing League events in Ganassi-owned cars.
Sorenson, fresh off the Busch Series win at Gateway near St. Louis, turned 21 on Feb. 5 and is apparently the youngest driver to ever win a pole for a major race here _ track historians were still researching that Saturday evening.
"I was nervous the whole time," Sorenson, a native of Peachtree City, Ga., said of his long wait. "I don't think it matters where you're fromto have your name in the record books here means a lot."
Montoya is creating his own section in the Indianapolis records. Sunday, he'll become the only driver to compete in the Indy 500, Formula 1's U.S. Grand Prix and the NASCAR race here. Nobody has yet won in more than one style of racing here.
Saturday's other drama was who'd make the race on speed, and that came down to the next-to-last car. When Jeremy Mayfield didn't go fast enough, that left Ward Burton with the final spot.
Burton was watching closely with his teenage son, Jeb, whose heart was pounding harder than his father's. "I was closing my eyes and praying," Jeb Burton said. "That paycheck is going to be real good for my go-kart fund."
Scott Riggs, Scott Wimmer, Brian Vickers, Dave Blaney, David Reutimann and Ken Schrader also got in, with Terry Labonte taking the former champion's provisional.
Joe Nemechek, A.J. Allmendinger, Kevin Lepage, Dale Jarrett, Mayfield and Kenny Wallace failed to qualify. Nemechek and Jarrett had both been in all previous 13 Cup races at Indianapolis, as had Sterling Marlin, who was not entered.
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