FONTANA, Calif. -- Steve Park is hopeful that winning the pole for Sunday's Auto Club 500 at California Speedway will be the start of something good.
"Now, the next step is to run good," said Park, who has had very little to boast about since winning the second race of the 2001 season. "We need to run good on Sunday."
Park has been under close scrutiny since missing the last eight races of 2001 and the first four of 2002 while recovering from a severe head injury.
Since resuming his ride with DEI, Park has managed only three top-10 finishes in 41 starts.
His first pole in more than two years brought a happy reaction from many of his competitors and buoyed Park's confidence.
"Man, hopefully, it's just going to get easier from here," the 35-year-old driver said. "That is what I'm hoping."
But Park knows it's not likely to really get any easier.
"This isn't a Cinderella story," he said. "This isn't the 'You won the pole, everything is going to be OK from here on out.' It's just a first step that we need to take to lift this whole team up to where it needs to be."
Big Mac Cup?
A spokesman for McDonald's acknowledged Saturday that the world's largest fast food chain has met with NASCAR to discuss the possibility of replacing Winston as the sponsor of its top stock car series.
John Lewicki, McDonald's director of alliances, said, "McDonald's continues to explore and look at new marketing opportunities. NASCAR has made a presentation to McDonald's and it's now in the evaluation stage.
"There is no timeframe on making a decision," Lewicki added.
The company currently sponsors the McDonald's Drive-Thru Championship fueled by Powerade, which recognizes and honors Winston Cup pit crews.
McDonald's will begin promoting that program with a new series of television commercials featuring defending Winston Cup champion Tony Stewart and Kyle Petty.
Other names mentioned in recent speculation about a new series sponsor include Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch and VISA.
That speculation has been growing since January, when R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. said it had given NASCAR permission to look for a new sponsor for the Winston Cup Series.
The company signed a five-year contract extension in July that runs through the 2007 season. The deal has been estimated to pay NASCAR anywhere from $30 million to $60 million annually.
Winston has been a NASCAR sponsor since 1971.
No repeat
Going into Sunday's race, no driver has more than one victory in the first nine races.
If that streak continues here, it will tie a Cup record for consecutive races with different winners at the start of a season. The record was set in 2000.
That year, it was Dale Earnhardt Jr. who was the first to gain a second victory. Earnhardt is also one of this year's winners, a list which also includes his teammate Michael Waltrip, Dale Jarrett, Matt Kenseth, Bobby Labonte, Ricky Craven, Kurt Busch, Ryan Newman and Jeff Gordon.
Four of the top-10 drivers in points have yet to win this season. Jimmie Johnson, the defending winner at California Speedway, is fourth in the standings, Kevin Harvick is sixth, defending series champion Tony Stewart is seventh and Elliott Sadler is 10th.
There were 18 winners in 36 races last season. The modern record of 19 was set in 2001.
Spark plugs
- Four of six Winston Cup winners here have won after starting in the top five. Jeremy Mayfield started 24th in 2000 and went on to win. Rusty Wallace won from 19th in 2001.
- Chevrolet and Ford have each won three times at the California track. Bobby Labonte finished second in a Pontiac in 2000, and Bill Elliott fourth in a Dodge in 2002 for the best performances by those makes.
The Associated Press News Service
Copyright 2003, The Associated Press, All Rights Reserved
