MONTE CARLO SS DRIVERS TAKE TOP 3 SPOTS: HAMLIN ON POLE, BURTON 2ND, GORDON 3RD
Denny Hamlin Grabs the Pole for the Chevy Rock & Roll 400; Chevy Sweeps Front Row at Richmond Monte Carlo SS Drivers Claim Six of Top-10 Starting Positions

Richmond, VA - Denny Hamlin, No. 11 FedEx Ground Monte Carlo SS, captured the pole for Saturday night's Chevrolet Rock & Roll 400 at Richmond International Raceway.

Hamlin's lap of 21.096 seconds, 127.986 mph is his third pole position of the 2006 season and the fourth of the Raybesto Rookie contender's 33 starts in NASCAR Nextel Cup competition.

Jeff Burton, No. 31 Cingular Wireless Monte Carlo SS, will start second to complete an all Chevy Monte Carlo SS front row. Burton won the pole for tonight's Emerson Radio 250 for the NASCAR Busch Series earlier in the afternoon.,

Jeff Goron, No. 24 DuPont Monte Carlo SS, will take the green flag from the third starting spot. Kevin Harvick, No. 29 Barenaked Ladies/GM Goodwrench Monte Carlo SS, will roll off in fifth.

Scott Wimmer, No. 4 Lucas Oil Monte Carlo SS, qualified sixth followed by Martin Truex, Jr., Bass Pro Shops/Tracker Monte Carlo SS, in seventh.

Mark Martin (Ford) starts fourth with Greg Biffle (Ford), Carl Edwards (Ford) and Matt Kenseth (Ford) starting eighth, ninth and tenth respectively.

The Chevy Rock & Roll 400 start time is 7:30 p.m. EDT Saturday night. Live television coverage will be on TNT. MRN Radio and XM Satelite Radio will provide the live action over the airwaves.

PRESS CONFERENCES

DENNY HAMLIN, NO. 11 FEDEX GROUND MONTE CARLO SS - POLE:

"It's pretty good right there. We missed Turn 1 quite a bit but hopefully it's a good enough lap to get us somewhere in the top-10."

DOES IT MATTER WHERE YOU START HERE?
"Yeah, I definitely think it matters. It kind of dictates where you're going to be at the first quarter of the race so we'll see where we stack up, top-five hopefully and top-10 at worst."

A LOT OF TIMES AT AN IMPOUND RACE YOU QUALIFY WELL BUT DON'T RACE WELL:
"We've got enough adjustability in this car, with the adjustments that they allow, that we should be in pretty good shape."

"Actually I overdrove Turns 1 and 2 but at the same instance we hit 3 and 4 pretty good. It was good enough to hold on and I guess that's all that matters."

YOU'VE ACCOMPLISHED A LOT THIS YEAR. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE FACT THAT YOU ARE IN THIS POSITION GOING INTO THIS RACE?
HAMLIN: "I don't know. I mean, I kind of find it hard to believe I'm racing with the guys for points that I am, especially as inexperienced as I am. A lot of these racetracks, had I not run those last seven races at the end of last year, I'd be going to some of these racetracks for the first time if I'm in the Chase racing for the championship. It was good of us to do that last year and I feel like if we do make it in it's going to be a big help for us that we do have something to fall back on. I think qualifying up front is going to be a big deal. Hopefully we can get out there and hopefully at least lead one lap and hopefully then we can finish 17th instead of 16th [to clinch a spot in the Chase]."

JEFF BURTON, NO. 31 CINGULAR WIRELESS MONTE CARLO SS - Qualified 2nd:

JEFF GORDON, NO. 24 DUPONT MONTE CARLO SS - Qualified 3rd

TAKE US THROUGH YOUR QUALIFYING LAP:
BURTON: "A lot of times when you go through qualifying you figure that you missed something here or there, but I didn't feel like I missed anything and that the car did everything I asked it to do. All in all it was a good qualifying run and if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't do anything different. So we'll be really happy with second."

GORDON: "I was really happy with the car all day today. We drew an early number and I wasn't sure what that was going to do for us. But if you're going to draw an early number, tonight was a good night for that with the weather conditions being overcast. So I went out there and the car did pretty much what I wanted it to do. I was real happy with the way it turned, and when I got in the gas, it stuck. I couldn't have been more pleased with the outcome."

HOW BIG A HOLE IS TONY STEWART IN BY QUALIFYING 40TH?
GORDON: "It's not good to start back there anywhere, but on a short track like this, it's even tougher. But Tony runs so good here, typically, that it's hard to say that's a hole for him. Just looking at ourselves, I'm just really happy to have a good starting position because of track position and pit stall. So when I look at Tony, that's the hole I see they're in. You don't have that track position. You want to stay out of trouble, and starting back there is certainly not the best place to do that. And you want a good pit stall and he's definitely not going to have that. But I'm sure his car is going to run good."

DID YOUR TEAMS BRING EXTRA PEOPLE TO HELP OUT IN CASE SOMETHING HAPPENED?
BURTON: "We brought extra people for today if we were to get into trouble and wreck in practice or something, we brought some extra people to try to make the turnover quicker. We've been talking about doing that at these one-day shows like this anyway. We just did it today."

GORDON: "I did happen to hear Steve Letarte mention something like that, but I don't know the people's names or anything like that or specifics or whether they were here today or not. They'll be here tomorrow. I did hear conversations about getting the car turned around and back on the track as soon as possible."

SHOULD NASCAR AWARD POINTS FOR QUALIFYING?
BURTON: "Until this year, I've been totally against that. I personally don't think they should award points for qualifying. That's my opinion."

ARE YOU NERVOUS ABOUT THIS RACE THAN ANY OTHER RACE?
GORDON: 'Oh, I was a lot more nervous last year. We were in such a hole and had such pressure on us that basically we had to win the race and lead the most laps in order to make it in. And things weren't going well for the team. We weren't performing where we needed to and momentum just wasn't on our side. This year, we just have more confidence and a better team all the way around. That takes a little bit of the pressure off, but anything can happen. That's the downside. It's all those little things that you don't know about that make you nervous. Performance-wise, as a team, I feel really good about how we've been running and how we'll run tomorrow."

BURTON: "I think that pressure is Kyle Petty coming here knowing he's not in the race and going to qualify well. If you get a guy like Jeff Gordon, who has won the championships and obviously the things he's done makes what I've done look very small. When you can't have success, there is way more pressure on that than when you can't. And if any of us leave here tomorrow night not making the show, we still feel like we deserve to be in it. It's when you don't feel like you deserve to be in it - when you don't have a snowball's chance in hell of being in it - that's what pressure is. So for me, this is a good place to be. It would be better to be second or third, but it's a whole lot better than being 15th."

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF GETTING A GOOD PIT STALL FOR SATURDAY'S RACE
GORDON: "That's the thing I'm most pleased with. These are pretty nice pit stalls here. But at short tracks in general, there can be a lot of action in the pits. So anything you can do to get a better pit stall is just one more thing to help you have a better night and maybe help you maintain that track position by maybe getting a clean shot out. Obviously we know which one Denny Hamlin is going to take and we'll see which one Jeff Burton takes and I just know we're going to have an opening, so I'm happy about that."