Minus a couple of road course specialists and Robby Gordon knows exactly what he could have pulled off on Friday at Infineon Raceway.

"If they weren't allowed," Gordon said of specialists Boris Said and Ron Fellows, "I'd have about four or five tenths on the field. They come out and keep me honest."

But not all that honest. Said, driving the No. 01 Pontiac Grand Prix for the injured Jerry Nadeau, edged Gordon for the pole position in Sunday's Dodge/Save Mart 350, but he needed a record-setting time to do it. And nobody else caught Gordon, who will start on the outside of the front row.

"The pole was what we came here for and we got beat today -- but at the same time, we haven't put a mark on the car all weekend, haven't been off in the gravel and we only did four laps before qualifying," said a very pumped-up Gordon. "We only focused on half-laps in qualifying. We didn't really work on doing a whole, complete, banzai lap because we didn't want to show what we had. I was really surprised that Boris picked up as much as he did. We picked up six tenths and I think we were ahead of him."

Given how Gordon felt last year at this race track, he believes that his outside-pole winning effort might be the difference between last year's 11th-place effort and this year's checkered flag.

"It's real hard to pass here during the race," Gordon said. "Last year we probably had the fastest car most of the race, but we had bad pit strategy and never recovered from it. So this year, qualifying was one of the most important things."

And Gordon, as well as Richard Childress Racing teammate -- and former Sonoma rival -- Kevin Harvick, came through big in time trials. Harvick will start sixth.

"I left a bunch on the table getting up the hill into Turn 1 and Turn 2," Harvick said. "I guess it's better to be too slow into one corner than too fast into another. I have a lot of fun coming to the road courses, Infineon and Watkins Glen, and we have a pretty good car in both divisions this weekend (Harvick won Saturday's NASCAR Featherlite Southwest race). I left a little sitting out there, but that's a lot better than I did last year, in screwing up the lap and not getting anywhere close to what we ran."

While Gordon and Harvick both improved on their time trails from last year, Steve Park -- a new addition to the Richard Childress Racing stable -- continued to struggle this season. The only RCR driver with a road course victory failed to qualify among the top 36 and will start 40th by using a provisional.

	Robby Gordon is strong on both superspeedways and road courses.

Should Gordon or Harvick reach the tail end of the field with Park still back there, they can only hope that Park doesn't cause another fuss like Gordon and Harvick put on two years ago. Gordon, on his way to a victory, was cruising along with only Tony Stewart nearby. Well, Stewart and the lapped car of Harvick.

Harvick pestered Gordon wanting to get his lap back, but Gordon stubbornly refused. Gordon's team reportedly relayed to Harvick's that Gordon would let Harvick get his lap back should a yellow flag come out if Harvick would back off, but Harvick didn't comply. As the two, each racing for different teams at the time, raced each other, Stewart passed both in a turn and won the race.

This year, Gordon and Harvick vow that the incident is in the past and will stay back there. Especially since neither particularly wants to be a lap down on Sunday -- not after putting forth such outstanding qualifying efforts Friday.

"It's the best lap we ran all day," Gordon said. "We knew we needed to save a little bit here, because there's not a lot of room for mistakes. We were able to pull off a good lap. It seemed like it slid from apex all the way to the edge of the road every single time about perfect. I didn't overdrive it, I didn't under-drive it and I probably did about a perfect lap."

Near perfect. Said will start on the inside -- the preferred spot through the early turns of the course. But Gordon doesn't mind a little give-and-take, so long as he's giving early in the day and taking later on.

"I'm very happy with where we qualified," he said. "How is it going to play in the race? Obviously, the inside line going into Turn 1, I need to give that to Boris. It's going to be give and take for a couple of laps, and I'll try not to burn the tires off it.

"If we can stay there, great. If we need to let a couple of guys go early, we will so we can tune on the car during the next pit stop. I really think we're going to be in good shape."

Rupen Fofaria covers NASCAR for The Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer and is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. He can be reached at rfofaria@espnspecial.com.