Racing News Digest

Hendrick Motorsports is starting the year off pretty strong landing Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the front row for the Daytona 500. Mark Martin grabbed his first ever pole position for the Daytona 500 at the Daytona International Speedway.

The last, and only other time Mark Martin has started from the pole position was for the Pepsi 400 in July or 1989. Martin finished 16th in that race.

“This is such a great accomplishment for the 5 and 88 teams,” Martin said. “That was not an accomplishment of mine. It is one of all our guys on this team. To have Dale Jr. on the outside of the front row, locked in, just means that we are doing stuff right.”

Mark Martin, who led NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series with seven poles last year, added another his resume, putting his No. 5 Chevy in the top starting spot for the Feb. 14 season-opening Daytona 500. Navigating the 2.5-mile superspeedway in 47.074 seconds (191.188 mph), Martin edged Earnhardt (190.913 mph) for the pole.

54 drivers are attempting to make it into the Daytona 500. If my math is correct, after the qualifying session last week, there are 4 spots open for drivers to try everything they can to get into the Daytona 500 by racing their wheels off during the Gatorade duels. That will be the top 2 drivers that are not locked into the race in each of the duels will advance to the Daytona 500.

Gatorade Duels will be on SPEED starting at 2 pm this Thursday!

TOP 10 QUALIFIERS

Whats the deal with the Gatorade Duels
For starters the front row is locked into their qualifying positions. So Mark Martin will start on the pole and Dale Earnhardt Jr. will start second.

For the duels, the drivers that qualified in odd number positions will start in the first Gatorade Duel.

Drivers that qualified in even number positions will start in the second Gatorade Duel.

So, since Martin got the pole and Ryan Newman qualified 3rd, Martin and Newman will lead the field in the first Gatorade Duel.

The top two drivers in each Gatorade Duel that are not already guaranteed a starting spot get into the Daytona 500.

The next three spots go to the fastest three qualifiers based on the single-car time trials from qualifying.

The final spot is guaranteed for a previous Sprint Cup Champion who was unable to qualify any other way. If there is no unqualified past champion then the 43rd spot goes to the next fastest qualifier based on speed from the single-car session.

What that means is that Bill Elliott, Scott Speed and Joe Nemechek qualified fast enough to lock themselves into the Daytona 500, they will be racing in the Duels solely for starting position.

Also, Bobby Labonte will be using his past championship provisional to lock himself into the field as well.

BOLD NAMES NEED TO RACE THEIR WAY INTO THE DAYTONA 500

GATORADE DUEL #1

GATORADE DUEL #2