Bristol, Tenn. ? As Jeff Gordon finally glimpsed a light at the end of his 31-race losing streak Friday, he blamed poor qualifying efforts not his pending divorce for his slump of nearly a year.

After winning the pole for tonight’s Sharpie 500, Gordon said of the five months since his wife, Brooke, filed for divorce, “I’ve never said it hasn’t been a distraction. But it doesn’t take my focus off this race team and what I’m doing.

“It’s nothing I want to be going through, but I don’t have that choice, and I’m making the best of it,” said Gordon, 31, who was married for seven years.

What has left NASCAR’s winningest active driver (58 career victories and four Winston Cup championships) winless since last Sept. 30 at Kansas City was qualifying in the middle or back of fields for weeks on end, he believes.

Gordon’s pole-winning speed Friday, 124.034 mph, was well off the 180-190 range which has been giving drivers, crews and engineers aerodynamic fits at the 1.5- to 2.5-mile tracks that dominate the series.

“When you come to a short track where you don’t have to worry about aerodynamics,” Gordon said, “you can focus on getting the car to work good in the corners (mechanically, through suspension adjustments) and get a good lap.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Michael Waltrip, qualified second and third, respectively, at 123.937 and 123.905, in their Dale Earnhardt Inc. Chevrolets.