Kenny Wallace snares Rockingham pole.

Kenny Wallace became the 18th different driver to win a Bud Pole award in 2001 as he knocked Ricky Craven off the pole at the North Carolina Speedway to earn his third career Winston Cup pole position and his first for the No.1 DEI Pennzoil team since taking over from Steve Park at Darlington two months ago.

Entering the weekend saying that he would announce his 2002 plans in Atlanta in two weeks time, Kenny Wallace may find himself changing his plans as he stormed to his first NASCAR Winston Cup pole position in more than three years and his first for the Dale Earnhardt Inc. team since he took over from the injured Steve Park at Darlington at the beginning of September.

Wallace, who met up with Park at a test at the Kentucky Speedway earlier this week, lapped the 1.017-mile North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham in a best time of 23.668 seconds to push PPI Motorsports driver Ricky Craven down to second place as the NWC field made their sole qualifying run for Sunday's Pop Secret Microwave Popcorn 400.

Victory for Wallace on Sunday would complete a remarkable double for the No.1 team at Rockingham in 2001 as Park emerged victorious in the sombre spring event here, just one week after the death of team boss Dale Earnhardt at Daytona.

Craven's best lap of 23.720 seconds had looked good enough for pole as he stood on pole for the majority of the session after rolling off pit-road seventh out of 44 cars and his No.32 Tide Ford stood proudly at the top until Wallace, 27th off pit road, squeezed that little bit extra out of his Chevrolet Monte Carlo.

Phoenix pole sitter Casey Atwood continued to show his, and Dodge's improvement on tracks smaller than 1.5-miles as he claimed third on the grid with Jerry Nadeau's Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet fourth and Bobby Hamilton a fine fifth.

The surprises didn't end there for in seventh position, behind the Bill Davis Dodge of Dave Blaney, was Dick Trickle in Dave Marcis' No.71 Realtree Monte Carlo who showed that there is still plenty of life in the old dog yet by lapping faster than soon-to-be-crowned Winston Cup Champ Jeff Gordon who will line up in eighth position.

Mark Martin and Tony Stewart brought a further feel of normality to the top ten by setting ninth and tenth fastest times respectively although Stewart (and the rest of the Pontiac brigade) was once again rather dispirited at the qualifying performance of his Pontiac Grand Prix.

Of the others, Sterling Marlin will line up 18th with Bobby Labonte 19th and Dale Earnhardt Jr 21st. Kevin Harvick was a lower than expected 23rd at the track where he made his Winston Cup debut all of nine months ago while Rusty Wallace's bid for a maiden 2001 Bud Pole will now turn to Homestead next weekend as he qualified a lowly 28th. Dale Jarrett was only 31st fastest while his Robert Yates Racing teammate Ricky Rudd was the first of the provisional qualifiers in 37th.

Also using Provisionals was Phoenix winner Jeff Burton, Johnny Benson, Matt Kenseth, Robert Pressley, Terry Labonte and Todd Bodine while Rick Mast in the unsponsored Junie Donlavey Racing Ford was the only non-qualifier despite setting 39th fastest time.