Martin Truex Jr. won his first Daytona 500 pole (and second overall in his Cup career) wtih a lap of 188.001 mph. Mark Martin, making his 25th Daytona 500 start, will start on the front row for the first time in his career.

And Bill Elliott locked in a spot for the Wood Brothers, a year after they missed the race  _ the first time the Woods had not competed in the Daytona 500 since 1962.

A few tidbits from the day:

# Three of the top seven speeds belonged to Earnhardt Ganassi Racing cars with Truex (first), Juan Pablo Montoya (fourth) and Aric Almirola (seventh).

# Hendrick Motorsports (and Stewart-Haas Racing, which gets its engines and chassis from there) took six of the top 12 spots with Martiin (second), Ryan Newman (third), Jimmie Johnson (sixth), Jeff Gordon (ninth), Tony Stewart (10th) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (12th).

# The top 35 are guarnateed a starting spot. Four spots were claimed Sunday by: Bill Elliott, Travis Kvapil, Tony Stewart and Terry Labonte (champoin's provisional). That leaves 4 spots (2 each in the 2 qualifying races) up for grabs Thursday. Among those trying to race their way in are Joe Nemechek, Boris Said, AJ Allmendinger, Jeremy Mayfield, Derrike Cope and Geoff Bodine.

# Jeff Gordon on how he avoided the first crash in Saturday night's Budweiser Shootout:

"I don't know how I came out of that one,'' he said. "It was one of those that you look around and say, "Did that just happen?" It was pretty cool. I just happened to get shuffled back a little bit right then, which was a good thing, and I was able to see the crash starting to happen, which allowed me to slow the car down sooner. Then it was about not locking the brakes up.

# Jeff Gordon on him talking with Jamie McMurray after Saturday night's race.

"I felt there was some pretty aggressive driving that was going on out there. I think Jamie did a great job last night. I wasn't displeased with Jamie at all. I thought he was being a little bit too aggressive with some of the blocks he was putting on guys that were going to cause more damage to his car or the other guy's car than need to be. I understand the final lap of the race or the final lap of the 500, but it was a litlte bit too early. We talked about it. He's doing what he needs to do to try to win the race and he's got a fast car. I wasn't criticizing him. I was just pointing out some things because I like Jamie a lot.''

# Kurt Busch on the difference between Daytona and Talladega:

"Talladega is like an eight-lane interstate where (Daytona) is like a two-lane road carving through the woods and you don't know what's coming around the next bend. There are lots of bumps in the race track where you don't know when your car is going to hit it hard and land awkwardly and you're always fighting the wheel here.

# Martin Truex Jr. on how NASCAR's testing ban helped Earnhardt Ganassi Racing win the pole:

“With all that went on with our team, moving shops and combining our efforts, I think testing would have hurt us more than it would have helped us. It was to our advantage that nobody could test because I think we would have been a little bit behind if we had to.’’

# Bill Elliott, who said a year ago he was going to retire at the end of 2008 after missing the Daytona 500, credits co-car owners Len and Eddie Wood and crew chief David Hyder for bringing him back this season after seeing progress late last year.

“You saw some glimmer of hope. I’m telling you, we as a race team really came together. It might not totally showed, but I felt like a lot of things really came together from that standpoint.’’

Here's the starting lineups for twin qualifying races

Dual 1

1. Martin Truex Jr.

2. Bill Elliott

3. Jimmie Johnson

4. Aric Almirola

5. Jeff Gordon

6. Tony Stewart

7. Paul Menard

8. Greg Biffle

9. Joe Nemechek

10. Joey Logano

11. Matt Kenseth

12. Jamie McMurray

13. David Ragan

14. Marcos Ambrose

15. Scott Riggs

16. Michael Waltrip

17. John Andretti

18. Brad Keselowski

19. Kasey Kahne

20. Robby Gordon

21. Casey Mears

22. Kurt Busch

23. Sam Hornish Jr.

24. Kirk Shelmerdine

25. Tony Raines

26. Terry Labonte

27. Mike Skinner

28. Carl Long

DUEL 2

1. Mark Martin

2. Ryan Newman

3. Juan Pablo Montoya

4. Travis Kvapil

5. Bobby Labonte

6. Dale Earnhardt Jr.

7. Regan Smith

8. Kyle Busch

9. Scott Speed

10. David Reutimann

11. Boris Said

12. Clint Bowyer

13. Denny Hamlin

14. Carl Edwards

15. Reed Sorenson

16. Elliott Sadler

17. Jeff Burton

18. Brian Vickers

19. AJ Allmendinger

20. David Stremme

21. Jeremy Mayfield

22. Mike Wallace

23. Mike Garvey

24. Kevin Harvick

25. Derrike Cope

26. Kelly Bires

27. Geoff Bodine

28. Norm Benning