WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. - A wet track from earlier rain prevented qualifying Friday at Watkins Glen International, giving NASCAR Nextel Cup points leader Jimmie Johnson the pole for Sunday's Sirius at the Glen.
Teammate Jeff Gordon will start second in a field set by car-owner points. Gordon, coming off a victory in the Brickyard 400, will be seeking his unprecedented fifth victory on the Watkins Glen road course.
The rest of the top 10 starters, also set by points: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Tony Stewart, Matt Kenseth, Elliott Sadler, Kurt Busch, Bobby Labonte, Kevin Harvick and Ryan Newman.
Johnson holds a 97-point lead over Gordon with five races remaining until the standings for the top 10 are reset at five-point intervals for the final 10 races to decide the Nextel Cup title. CHAMP CAR: Series leader Sebastien Bourdais closed out a flurry of record-setting times, securing the provisional pole in the first round of qualifying for the Grand Prix of Denver. Bourdais earned a front-row spot for Sunday's 90-lap race when he finished the 1.65-mile course in 1 minute, 0.413 seconds (98.740 mph) for the final of seven track records - three in the last few minutes of qualifying.
TRUCKS: Bobby Hamilton Jr. claimed the pole in just his third start, the fastest of 18 drivers to break the Nashville Superspeedway qualifying record. Hamilton turned a lap at 160.990 mph over the 1.333-mile concrete speedway to take the top spot for today's Toyota Tundra 200. He beat Mike Bliss' track record of 157.332 mph, established in August 2002.
FORMULA ONE: Kimi Raikkonen turned in the quickest time in practice for the Hungarian Grand Prix in Budapest, edging Michael Schumacher, who will be trying for a record 12th victory of the season in the race. Raikkonen clocked 1 minute, 20.884 seconds.
