BRISTOL, Tenn. - Rusty Wallace will have momentum working for him and his own recent history working against him tonight in the Goracing.com 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Wallace won his eighth pole of the season Friday night, edging Jeff Gordon by one one-thousandth of a second with a lap at 125.477 mph to earn his seventh career pole at Bristol and his fifth in the past eight races here.

Wallace won the season's first race at the .533-mile track and has eight of his 52 career victories here. He also comes into tonight's 500-lap race off a win last weekend at Michigan.

"We've got momentum on our side," Wallace said. "We had a fast car."

Wallace, in fact, thought his car had been good enough to win the pole despite the fact it coasted across the line after his throttle broke three to four car-lengths before he reached the checkered flag. But that happened on the second lap in his two-lap run. He won the pole with the first.

That notwithstanding, winning the pole hasn't been a particularly good omen for Wallace this season. Last weekend's win at Michigan was his third of the season, but none of them has come in a race in which he started first.

"That's just a coincidence," Wallace said. "I am still going to try to sit on the pole for as many races as I can."

Gordon came within a whisker of denying him the pole for Saturday night's race, completing his lap in 15.293 seconds to 15.292 for Wallace.

"You start thinking about all of the little tiny places where you may have bobbled or might could have picked up a thousandth of a second," said Gordon, who also has a new car here this weekend. "I don't know what we could have done to go a little bit faster rather than me hitting my line off Turn 4 a little bit better."

But the front-row starters were only part of the story in Friday's qualifying. Equally, or perhaps even more compelling, was who didn't run well - and there were a lot of pretty big names falling into that category.

Winston Cup points leader Bobby Labonte and defending points champion Dale Jarrett were foremost among them. Neither made the top 25 to secure their starting spots in the first round, only the third time Labonte has failed to make the top 25 and the fourth time Jarrett has missed it this season.

More importantly, however, is the fact that neither Labonte nor Jarrett will have pit stall on the frontstretch for tonight's race. Even though Dale Earnhardt won this race a year ago from a backstretch pit stall, pitting back there is historically a detriment to a team's fortunes.

"It's always fun here to do that," said Labonte, who was 32nd fastest at 123.515 mph. "I've done it here before, so it's no big deal. It's just one of those things. We'll start from the back and see what happens."

Jarrett, 31st fastest at 123.546 mph, has bad memories of a backstretch pit stall. He came into this race a year ago with a 314-point lead in the Winston Cup standings, but lost 101 points off that margin after wrecking twice and finishing 38th.

"It was just a bad lap," Jarrett said of Friday's effort.

Wallace, fifth in the points and 352 behind Labonte, said he doesn't wish misfortune on anybody but knows that tonight's race could help him and some other contenders make up some ground in the points race.

"I think it's wide open for the top five or six, I really do," Wallace said. "Stranger things have happened and I just hope that I'm one of them who can make up points. I'm going for the championship just like a lot of drivers are, but Bobby is going to have to have some bad luck, and so is Dale Jarrett."

Matt Kenseth, Terry Labonte, Johnny Benson, Jeff Burton and Ricky Rudd are also among those who won't be pitting on the frontstretch tonight.

Steve Park, the winner two weeks ago at Watkins Glen who won the pole here in the spring, was third fastest at 125.428 mph, with Mike Skinner and Jerry Nadeau joining him in the top five.

Tony Stewart and Mark Martin come next, with Sterling Marlin, Robert Pressley and Kevin Lepage rounding out the top 10.

Elliott Sadler (11th), Robby Gordon (13th) and Stacy Compton (21st) also ran well. Compton's performance was particularly impressive in light of two facts - he didn't make the race last weekend at Michigan and he was driving Friday night with a broken collarbone suffered while playing racquetball this week.