Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt Jr. Earn Daytona 500 Front Row Start

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- It's too early to be too excited Junior Nation, but a front row starting spot in the Daytona 500 could go a long way toward setting Dale Earnhardt Jr. back on the right course.

He'll start alongside his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Mark Martin, who on Saturday won the pole position for the Feb. 14 Daytona 500. Martin's No. 5 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet turned a lap of 191.188 mph around the 2.5-mile Daytona International Speedway -- just edging Earnhardt's lap of 190.913 mph in the No. 88 Amp Energy Chevrolet.

Martin's lap is the fastest since Jeff Gordon posted a 195.067 mph speed in winning the 1999 Daytona 500 pole. Twelve drivers topped the 190-mph mark. Dale Jarrett's 2000 pole-winning speed was the last time any driver had gone 190 mph in qualifying.

Ryan Newman, the 2008 Daytona 500 winner, was third fastest. Former series champion, 54-year old Bill Elliott, was fourth quickest and Juan Pablo Montoya rounded out the top-five. Four-time defending series champion Jimmie Johnson was sixth fastest. Jeff Gordon and defending Daytona 500 winner Matt Kenseth were 10th and 11th fastest, respectively. Kenseth and Elliott were the only Ford drivers to post top-20 qualifying times.

Typically, drivers insist qualifying position is irrelevant at restrictor plate tracks such as Daytona and Talladega, Ala. But for Martin and Earnhardt -- two drivers whose careers took divergent turns last season -- a strong start to the 2010 season is particularly significant.

The 51-year old Martin won five races and seven pole positions and finished runner-up in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship -- his fifth career runner-up in the standings. Winning a pole position in the ensuing season-opener diminishes any thought that last year was some sort of a feel-good anomaly.

Earnhardt, on the other hand, struggled through the worst season in his 10-year career in NASCAR's marquee Cup Series. While his three Hendrick teammates finished an unprecedented 1-2-3 in the championship, the 35-year-old Earnhardt ranked 25th with only five top-10 finishes. He hasn't won a race since June, 2008 at Michigan.

"This is just what we need, but we need a lot,'' Earnhardt said. "You can never have enough good things happen to you, can you? This is a start and hopefully we can get the ball rolling."'

Martin joked that winning his first Daytona pole position this weekend may still get less attention than his Go.Daddy.com sponsor counterpart, Danica Patrick, will receive in her stock car debut later Saturday afternoon in the ARCA Series race.

"I've been real fortunate to have a lot of success in my career and still fly under the radar,'' Martin said with a big grin. "And that's cool.

"I'm a fly-under-the-radar kinda guy.''

But, Martin also acknowledged, this is certainly the right way to start things off. After returning to the circuit full time in 2009, he signed a contract that will now keep him at Hendrick through 2011.

"It was kind of a surprise to me last year to sit on the outside pole,'' said Martin, "But we won seven poles after that so after awhile I've come to expect it.

"Today is about pride.''

"We both, the number five and the number eighty-eight, hope to raise our game this year.''

Only the front row starting positions were finalized in Saturday's qualifying session. The remainder of the 43-car field will be set based on a formula that includes finishing order in Thursday's Gatorade Duel 150-mile qualifying races and qualifying times. The top-35 cars in owners points last year are guaranteed a spot on the starting grid.