Saturday, June 08, 2002
Flooding cancels Pocono qualifying
Marlin is awarded first pole of season
The Associated Press
LONG POND, Pa. — Sterling Marlin got his first pole of the season without turning a wheel Friday when qualifying for the Pocono 500 was canceled because of a wet track.
The 43-car field was set on the basis of Winston Cup points.
Many areas of the surface at the 2 1/2-mile Pocono International Raceway were wet from ground water seeping through the asphalt. Three inches of rain fell Thursday, bringing the total for the last week to 8.
All activities at the track were brought to a halt after the ARCA Series cars practiced in the morning. It was then that NASCAR noticed water on the track, preventing Winston Cup practice and qualifying.
The sanctioning body then had ditches dug at different spots around the track, but they immediately began filling with water. Now, NASCAR hopes continuing to work through the night will permit practice today.
“They'll just keep digging trying to alleviate it,” NASCAR spokeswoman Danielle Humphrey said. “They want to let the water come out someplace besides the track.”
Marlin said the cancellation of practice and qualifying would have little effect on him other than winning the pole by default.
“The car was set up for qualifying,” he said of his Dodge. “We'll just move some weight around.”
Rookie Jimmie Johnson, denied a chance to win his fourth pole, will have the outside of the front row. Johnson, a winner last Sunday in Dover, Del., has the most poles and is tied with Marlin, Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth for the most wins with two.
Perhaps the most fortunate of the drivers was Johnson's car owner, four-time series champion Jeff Gordon. He will start third for the second week in a row without taking a lap.
Last week, Gordon got to slide into that position when several drivers changed cars or engines and were forced to the rear of the field.
“I'm beat, I'm worn out,” Gordon said, then laughed. “That was a heck of an effort.”
Rain has been a problem for some time in this area. During a test last week, only Rusty Wallace, who will start fifth, got on the track, but Marlin said Wallace was not able to run a lap at speed.
There was no question the cars could not take to the track.
“It was like somebody turned on a hose,” Marlin said. “The water just kept seeping out.”
It was the second time in the modern era of NASCAR that water seeping through the asphalt curtailed qualifying. In 1998, the cars were unable to take their timed runs on a Friday. That time, however, the field was set in qualifying the next day.
The track said there was little it could do. The water table in the area, where there have been some road closures, is reported to be about 17 inches above normal.
“We have had five inches of rain in the last two days,” the track said in a statement. “We have run 500-mile races for more than 30 years and have never encountered this problem.”
The race was rained out in 2000 and moved to Monday. The only other rainout on the mountaintop came in 1979.
Kenseth will start fourth and four-time Pocono winner Wallace fifth. They will be followed by Mark Martin, Stewart, Kurt Busch, four-time Pocono winner Bill Elliott and defending race champion Ricky Rudd.
IRL SETS HEARING: The appeal of Team Green driver Paul Tracy's runner-up finish in the Indianapolis 500 will be heard by Indy Racing League president Tony George on June 17.
George will hear evidence from Team Green and Penske Racing, whose driver, Helio Castroneves, was declared winner of the May 26 race. The hearing is expected to last only that day.
A decision probably will be made within 30 days after that.
Tracy passed Castroneves for the lead on the next-to-last lap. But the IRL ruled that a yellow caution light came on for a crash before the pass was completed, locking Castroneves in first place and Tracy in second.
• Rookie Tomas Scheckter starts on the pole (220.146 mph), on the front row with car owner and Red Bull teammate Eddie Cheever Jr., in tonight's Boomtown 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. The 21-year-old son of 1979 Formula One champion Jody Scheckter is the youngest polesitter ever in the IRL.
Scheckter hasn't finished his last four races, crashing out of the last three. He led 85 laps at the Indianapolis 500 before suddenly sliding up the track and into the wall on the 173rd of 200 laps.
FORMULA ONE: Michael Schumacher doesn't worry about going fast on Friday.
“As usual on a Friday, we have concentrated mainly on tire comparison in order to make the best decision tomorrow,” said Schumacher, third on the speed chart after two sessions of practice for the Canadian Grand Prix at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal.
David Coulthard, something of a surprise when he won two weeks ago in Monaco, continued to make good progress with his McLaren Mercedes, knocking the Williams BMW of Juan Pablo Montoya off the top spot late in the afternoon session on the 2.747-mile course.
Coulthard got around the course in 1 minute, 15.407 seconds — a speed of 129.368 mph.
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Flooding cancels Pocono qualifying
