Rain (again) washes out qualifying at Watkins Glen

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. -- Intermittent rain that turned persistent early Friday afternoon at Watkins Glen International wiped out Bud Pole Qualifying for the Centurion Boats at The Glen, the third time in the last four years that's occurred at this road course.

Jeff Gordon, who has led the standings for the last 17 weeks, took advantage of that and will start first -- the third time this season he has started first after qualifying was rained out. The remainder of the 43-car lineup was set according to the Cup rule book.

Gordon will start his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet on the pole for the eighth time this season, with five of them earned with fast time. Second-place points man Denny Hamlin will line up on the outside of the front row in his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Chevy.

Gordon previously started first after qualifying rainouts at Texas in April and Daytona in July.

"I keep trying to find the benefits of leading the points, and it's moments like [Friday] where it pays off," Gordon said. "You hate to see this weather come in like this, but it's just one of those days. I was riding around in the pace car and the track was dry, but the windshield was wet."

After Cup practice earlier in the day, Busch cars practiced for 88 minutes, but their session was delayed, cut short and interrupted by brief rain spats. NASCAR immediately deployed its fleet of jet blowers as crews continued to push cars into the pre-staging line on pit road.

At about 4:20 p.m. ET, a heavy mist turned to an outright rain, and within minutes, Nextel Cup director John Darby instructed teams to return their cars to the garage area.

"I thought we were going to find a window, but it just keeps rolling in, it just keeps making parts of the track wet and there's just no getting around that," Gordon said. "Obviously, I didn't draw a good number of qualifying [Friday], so going out second wasn't going to benefit us, but I thought we really made some gains at the end of practice, so I didn't think we were going to be on the pole if we'd have gone, but I thought we'd have a top-five -- and obviously starting up front is going to be important here."

Juan Montoya, who won the series' previous road-course event at Infineon Raceway, will line up his No. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing Dodge in 18th.

The outcome was frustrating on a strange day in which Nextel Cup practice began 40 minutes late due to morning rain and fog and lasted only 57 of a scheduled 90 minutes.

The most frustrated might have been German road racer Klaus Graf, who practiced the No. 49 BAM Racing Dodge fast enough to qualify, but never got the chance.

Other drivers who were not fast enough in practice, but were denied a chance by the rainout and ended up going home were Ward Burton, Brian Simo, Boris Said, A.J. Allmendinger and Marcos Ambrose, who was attempting his Nextel Cup debut.

Said's team had to pack up its No Fear Racing Ford but the Californian also will drive a Busch Series Dodge for Gillett Evernham Motorsports on Saturday. Said was on the pole for July's Pepsi 400 at Daytona when the session was cancelled by rain with only a handful of cars left to run.

Said, whose sponsor is an energy drink for whom he spawned the catch phrase, "buy more cases so we can do more races," was devastated by the weather's turn.

"For a part-time team, you don't get to race that much and two races in a row get taken away," Said said. "I don't understand why the schedule can't be adjusted and just qualify [Saturday] when it's going to be sunny. It's just hard for a small team -- it pretty much puts us out of business, it puts me out of business. It's just a lot of income lost.

"We're going to Talladega. That's our next race. That's our last race. We've shown performance every time we've gone, but the problem right now, an independent team, it's almost impossible. Right now, it's just depressing."