BY TEAM FORD RACING CORRESPONDENT

Fontana, Calif. — Roush Racing nailed a pair of spots in the top-10 for Sunday's Pop Secret 400. Kurt Busch, who knows how to sail around this 2.0-mile track, got Ford its top starting spot, fourth.

"It was just a weird car today, but we finally put it all together," said Busch after posting his time. "We were chasing ourselves with one question versus another question and we scienced it all out right before we went and qualified. We just put what we thought we needed to have under it.

"I didn't know it would stick that good," Busch added, "so to be up front is good and that way it will give us better track position throughout the race and that will make our decisions easier when it comes time to pitting and taking two versus four on Sunday."

Next best in the Oval class was Greg Biffle. He has to be taken seriously here given his recent performance at sister track, Michigan International Speedway, where he took the checkers for his second career win.

"We've got to be happy with that. Our car wasn't that good earlier," noted the National Guard driver. "This is the car we won with at Michigan and we thought we were gonna be a lot better than that, but the guys worked real hard on it and got the National Guard car a lot better. We're pretty excited to qualify in the top 10. We've got a car we think we can with here and we're just gonna have to see what we've got in Happy Hour."

Perhaps the most disappointed Ford driver after qualifying was Elliott Sadler. Understandable given that he was the fastest driver in the Friday morning practice session but qualified 17th.

"I had a little tighter set of tires on and it showed—we were just way too tight," Sadler offered after posting his time. "The track is in really good shape, but we just missed it real bad. We know it's gonna race good. We can see 'em and we'll try to get 'em from there."

Getting best improved from Michigan several weeks ago to today was Ricky Rudd. The driver of the No. 21 improved his lot substantially from his MIS 27th starting place when he put the Motorcraft Ford 20th on the California grid.

"I'm tickled to death with Fatback and all these guys on this Motorcraft team.The driver screwed up," said Rudd. "The car felt so good. I haven't had a car that stuck like this in so long. When I drove into Turn 1 I said, 'This feels pretty good,' and I kept on going and kept on going and, stupid me, I overdrove the corner the down there and paid the price.

"I probably lost two-tenths down in Turn 1, but I'm tickled to death. We haven't run this good or had a car feel this good in a long, long time on these race tracks."

SOCAL STYLE
According to local news reports nearly a third of the greater Los Angeles area population leaves town for this three day weekend; and given the heavy traffic leading out of town at the end of Friday’s work the news' estimates can't be pooh-poohed to any great extent.

But even with the mass exodus that's taking place staff members for the California Speedway say they're very close to selling out Sunday's race. According to track staff there's less than a couple of thousand tickets left for Sunday's race and there's big interest in those tickets by the locals who stayed behind.

HARD PARTS
According to NASCAR sources all three manufacturers have submitted new intake manifolds for consideration of approval by NASCAR for the 2005 season. The deadline for new part submittal was Sept. 1.

The Ford piece doesn't represent an earth shattering improvement, and actually the new item was submitted to help the engine builders assemble and seal the intake system. The current intake posses a problem due to the orientation of the bolts used to secure it to the head and the fasteners don't allow a seal to the quality of the other manufactures.

The GM types are keeping their cards close to their vest, but cited assembly issues. The Dodge Boys weren’t available to learn their desires for a new intake.