Tropicana front row for Haas-Carter.

Travis Carter team-mates Todd Bodine and Jimmy Spencer will share the inaugural front row at the Chicagoland Speedway following Bud Pole Qualifying at the brand new 1.5-mile facility with the middle youngest of the Bodine brothers claiming his second career Winston Cup pole and first since Watkins Glen 1997.

As sad as it sounds, the No.66 Route 66/Kmart Ford owned by Carl-Haas and Travis Carter was something of an embarrassment last season in the hands of the retiring Darrell Waltrip and although the 2001 road has not been without its pot-holes, Todd Bodine is slowly helping to turn the team around and he took a giant leap on Friday by grabbing pole position for the 18th round of the 2001 NASCAR Winston Cup Championship.

With no form book to look on, the Haas-Carter team were able to shock the establishment as Bodine paced the opening Friday morning practice session before ripping off a 29.393-seconds lap in qualifying for an average speed of 183.717mph, very fast for a non restrictor plate race. Bodine's average speed was slower only than Atlanta, Texas, Charlotte and Michigan of the non-restrictor plate tracks visited thus far in 2001 but quicker than Las Vegas and Fontana, two places where Bodine has already shown well in 2001.

Bodine's Travis Carter team-mate Jimmy 'Mr Excitement' Spencer joined Bodine on the front row with a lap of 29.442-seconds as the track seemed to pick up speed as the session wore on with Ricky Rudd taking down the third starting position in a Ford 1-2-3. Bill Elliott paced the Dodge department with fourth position while Joe Nemechek rounded out the top five in the best of the Chevrolet's.

For once Kevin Harvick isn't at a disadvantage over the rest of the field as experience counts for less here than anywhere else and he used his natural ability to claim sixth spot on the grid for Richard Childress Racing while Mike Skinner was doing his best to keep his RCR seat for next year as he set seventh fastest time.

Jerry Nadeau, Sterling Marlin and Brett Bodine completed the top ten on a day where many of the major players found themselves searching for a decent set-up and not finding it in-time for a competitive qualifying run. Dale Jarrett will start 11th ahead of the leading Pontiac, that of Ken Schrader. Mark Martin will start 18th, Rusty Wallace 21st and Bobby Labonte 24th after being third in practice.

Tony Stewart didn't take any more headlines with 27th fastest time, one place ahead of Jeff Gordon and two ahead of Jeff Green who will drive for Richard Childress next year. Jeff Burton was 32nd, Johnny Benson 34th and Dale Earnhardt Jr the last man to qualify on speed alone down in 36th after a top ten practice effort.

Resorting to provisionals were Matt Kenseth, Jeremy Mayfield, Michael Waltrip, Terry Labonte, Robby Gordon (substituting again for Mike Wallace), Hut Stricklin and Buckshot Jones while the last named was the only driver to finish outside the top 43 on speed alone with Kyle Petty once again finding himself relegated to the role of spectator in order to make way for his team-mate.

Joining Petty, who was 38th on the time sheets, on the sidelines for Sunday's race will be Dave Marcis, Mike Bliss and Shawna Robinson