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Bouncing back Gordon opens second half of season with Loudon pole
By Stephen Thomas, CNNSI.com LOUDON, N.H. -- If, as Jeff Gordon suggested Friday afternoon, the Winston Cup season is fairly similar in character to a basketball game, then Gordon opened the second half on a proverbial 10-0 run. By winning his sixth pole of the year at New Hampshire International Speedway, Gordon apparently has rebounded from a recent run of bad luck and begun the second half of the season with a bang. Gordon, who averaged 131.770 mph in his turn around the 1.058-mile oval, will start in front of Mark Martin and Jeremy Mayfield, respectively in Sunday's New England 300. It is the 37th pole of Gordon's career and his third in New Hampshire. Jeff Burton, who has won four of the last nine races at the track, will start 10th and Kyle Petty, returning to the track where his son, Adam, died last May, will start 26th. "It's just like a basketball game," Gordon said of the 36-race season. "We're just waiting around for the fourth quarter and we just hope we have what we need when that time comes."
Before qualifying began, there was concern that new tires, combined with a freshly-applied sealer to the track, could create some problems for the drivers. Though Jerry Nadeau and Brett Bodine crashed their cars in practice, there were no accidents during qualifying. Indeed, Martin, vocal in his dislike for tracks that have been sealed, praised the track and its grip. "This sealer is definitely a step in the right direction," Martin said. "The paving at this track has never been what it could be here. Hopefully, now we'll be able to pass [Sunday]." It remains to be seen if Gordon and his crew will have the right stuff to win the points race, but there's no question that he is perfectly content sitting in a tie for first with Dale Jarrett (who will start ninth) at the halfway point of the season.
And though Gordon conceded that taking the pole for Sunday's race is a nice change from his recent, dismal performance -- he finished 37th at Daytona and 17th in Joliet -- he scoffed at the notion that it is a harbinger of any significance. "We've got a lot of racing left to go," he said. "Way too much. To be thinking that a pole gives you some kind of an edge over the competition is kind of crazy."
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