Joliet, Ill. ? A couple of NASCAR’s precocious kids took the spotlight again Friday, with rookie Ryan Newman winning the pole for the Tropicana 400 and second-year driver Kurt Busch right behind.

Newman, who won the pole for the inaugural Busch series race a year ago at Chicagoland Speedway, made it 2-for-2 on the 11*2-mile oval, turning a lap of 183.051 mph to earn his second Winston Cup pole of the season and the third of his budding career.

Ryan newman sits in his car as crew members work on the engine during morning practice. Newman won the pole Friday for Sunday's NASCAR Tropicana 400 at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Ill.

Busch’s lap of 182.593 was only 0.0074-seconds slower than Newman as Fords swept the front row for Sunday’s race.

“For me, it’s a fun racetrack,” Newman said. “It’s fast and its got pretty good banking and you stick pretty good. This is a place where you’ve got to keep your speed up in the corners and I’ve adapted pretty well here.”

Busch, coming off a disappointing race in Daytona, in which he was held in the pits for four laps as punishment for cursing NASCAR officials over the radio during the Pepsi 400, just wanted to put that behind him.

“It was a good lap,” Busch said of his qualifying effort. “We prepared for it, went for it and just came up a little bit short.

“I was disappointed as a matter of fact. I thought we would win our first pole of the year.”

Bill Elliott, third at 182.451 in a Dodge, said he doesn’t think about the age factor much, even though the 46-year-old driver was racing before either Newman, 24, or Busch, 23, was born.

“These guys have made a few racing mistakes, being young, but overall they’ve done very well,” Elliott said. “They’re guys to beat each and every week.”

It took Elliott longer to get established in Winston Cup when he arrived in the early 1980s.

“I worked on the car and drove it and we had no money when I got started,” the 1988 Winston Cup champion said. “These guys come in with great equipment and have opportunities I never got, but I’m not saying that’s a negative.

“It’s evolution. Today you couldn’t be put in the environment I was in the mid-80s. You couldn’t handle all of it today. These guys have too many obligations outside the race car.”

Busch doesn’t consider age a factor, either.

“With young drivers, the only thing we want to do is go to the front,” he said. “Age doesn’t have much to do with it. Success here has to do with where your program is the chassis and engine dynamics.”

Series points leader Sterling Marlin, another fortysomething driver, was fourth in another Dodge at 182.192, followed by the Chevrolet of Daytona winner Michael Waltrip at 181.953 and the Pontiac of Tony Stewart at 181.616.

Mark Martin, second in the points, was 13th at 181.245, while third-place Rusty Wallace, Newman’s Penske Racing South teammate, was eighth at 181.531.