Mark Martin had his first glimmer of hope in a gloomy season when he won the pole Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Martin, considered a championship contender before the season, has been awful. He has only one top-10 finish and is 23rd in Winston Cup points after five races.
But he took a step toward turning it around by running a lap of 126.303 mph in his Ford to take the pole for the Food City 500 on Sunday.
It was Martin's seventh career pole at Bristol tying him with Rusty Wallace for the track record but his first since starting on the front row in Rockingham, N.C., in October 1999.
Sterling Marlin took the outside of the front row in a Dodge with a lap of 125.387. He's hoping to become the first driver to win in a Dodge in the manufacturer's return after 16 years away from Winston Cup.
Kevin Harvick, a rookie driving the late Dale Earnhardt's car, was third in a Chevrolet and had the pole for almost 30 minutes until Martin knocked him off.
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