Sadler claims maiden pole.

Elliott Sadler scored his first ever Winston Cup Bud Pole Award in 145 career starts on Friday at the Darlington Raceway to make it five different pole sitters in five races so far this year.

After setting the fastest time in Friday morning practice at the 1.366-mile egg-shaped oval in Darlington, Sadler chipped a further two tenths of a second off his weekend best thanks to some massively committed driving and cooler skies overhead.

The softly spoken Virginian needed just one flying lap to secure the pole for Sunday's Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 with a best time of 28.902secs (170.147mph) to give the #38 M&M's team and crew-chief Raymond Fox their first entry into the Budweiser Shootout next February.

With almost every driver clinging to the outside walls of Darlington's two distinctly different turns, almost frightening levels of commitment were required to string together an impressive lap and so in almost every case drivers set their best time on their first flying lap. Only Jeff Burton actually scraped the outside wall but many more returned to the pits scarcely believing they had avoided contact.

Sadler's pole winning time came in a frantic period of the session where the front of the order was shuffled greatly. Kurt Busch went out 15th in the line of 43 and took the provisional pole with a time of 29.101secs. Sadler went out next and knocked Busch onto the outside of the front row less than two minutes before Jeff Gordon demoted Busch to third with a time just 13 hundredths slower than Sadler. Shortly afterwards Jerry Nadeau went out and caused a stir by setting second fastest time (29.069secs) only to watch last weeks' pole winner Ryan Newman swiftly depose him with a lap of 29.034secs.

After surviving Newman's best effort Sadler still had almost 20 cars to watch on their qualifying attempts but as the session wore on grip levels seemed to deteriorate and the top of the order was left largely alone.

Jimmy Spencer qualified directly after Newman and put 'Mongo' onto the second row of the grid in fourth position alongside Nadeau while Gordon and Busch found themselves relegated to the third row.

Ward Burton was the only driver to string together a decent qualifying run in he closing minutes of the session and the driver of the #22 Caterpillar Dodge turned the seventh fastest time despite being 41st to make his qualification attempt. Burton will start alongside early session polesitter and defending race Champion Sterling Marlin on row four.

Michael Waltrip was happy to set ninth fastest time in one of only two Chevrolet's to sneak into the top ten, the other being that of six-time Darlington winner Gordon while Todd Bodine was at his lurid best on the slippery end of session surface and set tenth fastest time in the Travis Carter/Sam Belnavis owned Ford.

Elsewhere on the grid, Matt Kenseth will start twelfth just ahead of Rusty Wallace and Jimmie Johnson with Ken Schrader an impressive 15th in the BAM Racing Dodge. Dale Earnhardt Jr will start 16th ahead of the fastest rookie Greg Biffle while Atlanta winner Bobby Labonte will start 20th.

With Darlington's notorious reputation for producing winners who start in and around the top 15, Mark Martin (27th), Tony Stewart (28th), Dale Jarrett (36th), Jeff Burton (37th) and Joe Nemechek (38th) will all be hoping that they can repeat Sterling Marlin's 'Top Gear from the Rear' job of 12 months ago.