Martinsville!
Welcome to live blogging of the Goody's 250 from Martinsville Speedway. I'll be writing as we go, so refresh the page often.
12:20 p.m.: Qualifying is underway. Kevin Harvick led off.
Although some of the Cup regulars were expected to miss qualifying -- they're in Pocono, after all -- Harvick figured getting up early was better than putting his Busch points lead in jeopardy.
12:25 p.m.: 12 cars have qualified - Hamlin has the pole, Harvick is 2nd. DW, who struggled in turns 3 and 4 ("He's getting old!" Ed Hardin said), is 11th out of 12. Good thing his brother has all of those owner points.
More after the jump ...
12:30 p.m.: The closed-circuit TV in the press box cuts away from qualifying to show a guy in a "Hydrate or Die" T-shirt taking cuts at a golf ball. (Looks like a wedge.) It's hot here - mid80s, humid as heck. The press box, though, is a refrigerator. I'm lovin' that.
12:32 p.m.: Jason Leffler takes fourth for now. He's only 15th to go, so expect that to change. Oh - Carl Edwards just showed up at the track. TV shows him jogging through the infield.
12:40 p.m.: Here's the scoop on the press box. We're up here between turns 1-2. (There's an elevator to get upstairs.) I'm sitting in the middle (the benefit of getting here early). I can see the whole track down here - turns 1-2 easily, the finish line, the back stretch, even turns 3-4. A TV is turned to an NBC feed; a couple other sets are a track-only channel that lists the drivers and their qualifying times. Ed Hardin is to my right; Tim Tuttle of NASCAR Scene and a long-time friend of Dustin Long, is to my left.
12:42 p.m.: A cheer goes up in the press box when they announced that Floyd Landis took over the yellow jersey in the Tour de France. (I just made that up. Folks are barely paying attention to qualifying.)
12:44 p.m.: One more thing about the press box - you can kinda sorta hear qualifying, but not really. You can talk to the person beside you without having to yell, but I figure that will change when the race starts. (No, I didn't bring head phones. It's only 250 laps. ;) )
12:46 p.m.: Halfway through qualifying. Hamlin still has the pole. Carl Long is the only driver on the bubble. (There are 44 drivers for 43 starting spots.) DW is one spot ahead of Long.
12:50 p.m.: Today's an impound race. So after the cars qualify (they come out onto the track from Turn 2), they park along the front stretch. Harvick, the first to qualify, is right at the start finish line. A second row of cars is now lining up between Harvick and the outer pit road wall (aka the inside wall if you're on the track.) Driver update - JJ Yeley made it, too, and qualified.
12:53 p.m.: Steve Wallace got a little loose out of 2. You think Rusty wishes he were driving today?
1 p.m.: Clint Bowyer takes the pole. 13 cars left.
1:02 p.m: Because there's nothing to do in Pocono other than ... ah, what is there to do there anyway? ... Ryan McGee of Fox Sports makes up a 2007 Cup Series schedule. Here's his chance to knock Pocono off the schedule ... and his dream sked has it twice. He includes three road course races (Sonoma, Watkins Glen and Mexico City.) I think the despair of being at Pocono for the second time in a month has gotten to him.
1:08 p.m.: Almost done. Lunch up here is hot dogs, though I'm not sure they're authentic Mart Dogs. Ed and I are going to get one in a bit.
1:09 p.m.: Richard Landreth in the No. 89 car is on the track now. No, I don't know who he is either. All I know is that he's probably going home - he's last of 39 drivers.
1:11 p.m.: The race is a little bit over two hours away, and a few people are here - I'd get several thousand, closer to 1,000 than 10,000. Most everyone seems to be in the front stretch grandstands toward turn 4. I guess that way they can see the drivers get out of the cars after their qualifying laps.
1:19 p.m.: Here's something mind-blowing -- nearly every driver today has beaten the track qualifying record. Of course, it was set in 1987 (the last Busch race here was in 1994) by Jimmy Hensley in a Buick. He got around the track in 20.411 seconds (92.774 mph.) Today, the top eight drivers broke 20 seconds. Bowyer leads with 19.735 seconds.
1:20 p.m.: Okay, we're done. The top 10: Clint Bowyer (he has the track record now), Jay Sauter, Hamlin, McFarland, Johnny Sauter, Harvick, Biffle, Kyle Busch, Sorenson, Yeley. Richard Landreth is going home. DW qualified 41st. Menard is 15th.
1:22 p.m.: Lunchtime. A crew is setting up a temporary podium at the start-finish line, and I'm going to take a break for a bit and restart with another post.