Wallace breaks Phoenix record in qualifying.

Penske-South Ford driver Rusty Wallace took an astounding ninth Bud Pole in 2000 in his #2 Miller Lite Ford on Friday afternoon with a record time of 26.830 seconds to beat off the challenge of Jeff Burton and Robert Pressley.

On a weekend where many unfancied names were predicted to be right at the front, Wallace continued his superb 2000 qualifying form with his 20th top ten qualifying run in 32 races thus far in 2000 to take pole by 15 hundredths of a second over the CITGO SUPERGUARD Ford of Burton.

It wasn't all plain sailing for Wallace, who suffered a variety of set-up problems during opening practice but the prodigious power of the Penske tuned engines eventually was the deciding factor as Wallace broke John Andretti's year old track record by more than three tenths of a second.

"It was a fast lap," said a relieved Wallace afterwards. "We worked our butts off here. When I saw Burton's time I thought nobody would touch him but that motor's making big time horsepower, the car handled great and I couldn't be happier." All he needs from the engine now is some trouble-free race mileage.

Burton's 26.845 second front row effort looked set for pole for much of the session and indeed no other driver apart from he and Wallace went under 27 seconds on an unusually overcast day in the Arizona desert. Burton's title hopes may be in tatters but he has not stopped charging and is trying to build some momentum for the 2001 season already.

"That run was quick," mused a not-too-disappointed Burton. "We picked up a couple of tenths from this morning and you always need to do that to qualify up front. We were third fastest in practice and picked up three tenths of a second, that's about all you can hope for."

First of the surprise front-runners was the Jasper Engines Ford Taurus of Robert Pressley whose mark of 27.011 seconds was good enough for a place on the inside of row two and his best grid position for over five years.

Johnny Benson was the fastest non-Ford and his 27.032 second lap held off the best of the Chevrolet runners, the #1 Pennzoil machine of Steve Park and the M7M's Pontiac of Ken Schrader.

Kenny Wallace continued Andy Petree Racing's recent good form with seventh position on the grid and his best effort of 27.044 seconds equalled that of Schrader who was given the higher spot by virtue of setting the time first.

Mark Martin will start eighth with a best lap of 27.054 seconds, a mere one thousandth ahead of current points leader Bobby Labonte who once again out-qualified his nearest title rival (Dale Earnhardt) by more than 20 places and took a big step on the road to securing his first Winston Cup Championship.

Ryan Newman, in his first event for Penske-South Racing, astonished many observers with his maturity and took tenth overall with a best lap of 27.061 seconds in the #02 Alltel Ford.

Ricky Craven will start eleventh ahead of Matt Kenseth, Dave Blaney, Jimmy Spencer and Mike Bliss who rounded out the top 15. Ricky Rudd could only managed 17th spot while Jeff Gordon and Jeremy Mayfield scraped through Bud Pole day in 24th and 25th positions respectively.

As predicted, many big names struggled to get straight up to speed on this highly individual, technical circuit and amongst those who have to wait until second round qualifying on Saturday to confirm their place in Sunday's Checker Auto Parts/Dura Lube 500k are Dale Earnhardt (31st), Dale Jarrett (36th), Terry Labonte (38th) and the defending Champion Tony Stewart who languishes back in 43rd out of 48 drivers who attempted a Bud Pole run.