STEELE WINS TALLADEGA POLE POSITION FOR MOUNTAIN DEW 500k

     TALLADEGA, Ala. (April 25) -- Tim Steele of Coopersville,
Mich., won the pole position Thursday for Saturday's Mountain Dew
500k ARCA Bondo/Mar-Hyde Supercar Series stock car race at
Talladega Superspeedway.
     Steele, the 1993 ARCA champion, turned a lap of the 2.66-mile
track in 49.826 seconds, an average speed of 192.189 mph, in the HS
Die/CIMLINC Ford Thunderbird. He was the 29th of 35 drivers who
attempted to qualify for Saturday's event.
     He bumped defending ARCA champion Andy Hillenburg of
Harrisburg, N.C., off the pole. Hillenburg ran a lap of 191.781 mph
in the ACDelco Chevrolet owned by NASCAR Winston Cup Series driver
Ken Schrader.
     Harris DeVane of Cuthbert, Ga., in the Georgia Peanut
Conmision Ford (191.214); Doug Reid of Hueytown, Ala., in the Long
Lewis Ford (190.344); and Mark Thompson of Cartersville, Ga., in
the Midway/Phoenix Ford (190.023) rounded-out the top five
qualifiers. 
     The top 25 starters for Saturday's 12 p.m. (Central) event
were locked-in on Thursday. The 40-car starting lineup will be
filled in second round qualifying at 9:30 a.m. (Central) on Friday
morning.

NOTES

KEVIN RAY (No. 2 Zack's Mesquite Grill Chevrolet) -- We had faster
practice times.  I think everyone will slow down a little bit.  The
wind's blowing now and it's a little warmer.  As long as we're in
the top 10 that's what matters.  My car does better in the draft. 
We got a good drafting car and that's going to help us out.

JACK SPRAGUE (No. 44 Quaker State 4x4 Chevrolet) -- We've got
another motor coming and we're going to change it in the morning. 
Look's like we'll end up all right but we've hurt it (motor)
somehow.  We're nowhere near as fast as we tested.  I don't know
what we've hurt -- we think it's in the motor.  We'll just have to
change it and see how it goes.

DENNIS CONNOR (Crew chief No. 44 Quaker State 4x4 Chevrolet) --
We've been hearing about this being a Hendrick Motorsports R&D
deal.  What this is is a NASCAR Craftsman Truck team running an
ARCA (Bondo/Mar-Hyde) race to get Jack Sprague some experience
racing at Talladega.  This is a car that's been sitting in the
corner at the Hendrick Motorsports shop.  We'll probably pool crew
members from all three (Hendrick) NASCAR Winston Cup teams to pit
the car on race day.  If this race goes well, we may try to take
this car to Charlotte for the ARCA race.  Things are going well for
us as a (truck) team, having just won at Phoenix (Chevrolet Desert
Star Classic 300 last Sunday).

ANDY HILLENBURG (No. 52 ACDelco Chevrolet) -- We won the
(Bondo/Mar-Hyde Supercar Series) championship, we've won some races
but we've never won a pole.  It sure would be nice to get one.

TIM STEELE (No. 16 HS Die/CIMLINC Ford) -- It's not as simple as
just holding the accelerator down... In practice we kept a close
eye on what the tachometer was doing in the corners. We were losing
about 300 RPM. What you try to do is scrub off as little RPM's as
you can, so we kept working on that, refining our lines until we
only lost about 50 RPM's. Coming off turn four coming down to take
the green I was looking at the tach saying 'this is gonna be a good
lap.' Now we're gonna try to lead every lap and win this thing. We
feel good about it.

DOUG REID (No. 05 Long Lewis Ford Ford) -- We could've been a
little better but I think that we tried to get the car a little too
quick.  The car is brand new and we didn't have a lot of practice
with it. It has just 12 laps on it.  We really can't be
disappointed because we did make the top five and we're really
happy to be running up front.