Martin goes from outhouse to penthouse at Chicagoland

Mark Martin entered the night outside the top 12 in points, but after dominating the LifeLock.com 400, he would currently be seeded first if the playoffs should start next week. Now that is a turnaround.

Our View: Of course, the Chase does not start next week. Martin needs to keep his consistency and strength for another few weeks if he wants to have a shot at the championship.

More Cup Series Newsbreakers

IRL: Honda Toronto Indy lineup, with avg. finish

In an odd qualification session, the top six drivers all raced for different teams and the heavy hitters Chip Ganassi and Roger Penske placed only one of their drivers at the front of the grid. Of course, Dario Franchitti made the most of that by going out to set an early lap to beat. No one could and he will lead the field to green. This is the IRL's first race at Toronto's Exhibition Place street course, but Franchitti has six previous starts there in the CART series and he's always started up front.

Results, with average finish

Start	Driver	CART Avg. Fin	CART Avg. Start	CART Attempts
1	Dario Franchitti	18.17	3.50	6
2	Will Power	4.00	9.50	2
3	Graham Rahal	11.00	15.00	1
4	Justin Wilson	5.00	2.75	4
5	Alex Tagliani	6.88	8.63	8
6	Mike Conway
7	Robert Doornbos	6.00	12.00	1
8	Scott Dixon	5.00	9.50	2
9	Raphael Matos
10	Helio Castroneves	18.00	9.50	4
11	Ryan Briscoe
12	Ryan Hunter-Reay	8.33	12.67	3
13	Mario Moraes
14	Tomas Scheckter
15	Paul Tracy	7.20	6.73	15
16	E J Viso
17	Marco Andretti
18	Danica Patrick
19	Ed Carpenter
20	Tony Kanaan	16.50	7.00	4
21	Dan Wheldon
22	Hideki Mutoh
23	Richard Antinucci

More Indy Racing League Newsbreakers

F1: German GP lineup, with avg. finish

Mark Webber earned his first Formula 1 pole and will sit at the head of the field to start the German Grand Prix.

The dominant racers of the year aren't far behind, however. Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button start second and third.

One other qualification of note was Lewis Hamilton. After a couple of weeks of poor time trials, he finally advanced into the final session of knockout qualification and will start fifth. This week, he said the team was fixing their problems. It appears he may just have been right.

Results, with average finish

Start	Driver	Avg. Fin	Avg. Start	Attempts
1	Mark Webber	11.83	12.17	6
2	Rubens Barrichello	5.38	7.77	13
3	Jenson Button	10.50	11.50	8
4	Sebastian Vettel
5	Lewis Hamilton	9.00	10.00	1
6	Heikki Kovalainen	8.00	7.00	1
7	Adrian Sutil	19.00	21.00	1
8	Felipe Massa	6.80	8.80	5
9	Kimi Raikkonen	11.43	4.00	7
10	Nelson Piquet Jr
11	Nick Heidfeld	10.25	10.38	8
12	Fernando Alonso	4.50	7.33	6
13	Kazuki Nakajima
14	Jarno Trulli	12.30	7.20	10
15	Nico Rosberg	13.50	16.50	2
16	Robert Kubica	7.00	5.00	1
17	Sebastian Buemi
18	Giancarlo Fisichella	11.00	11.42	12
19	Timo Glock
20	Sebastian Bourdais

More Formula 1 Newsbreakers

IRL: Franchitti takes Toronto pole

Dario Franchitti will lead the field to green on Sunday on the street course in Toronto.

Our View: That will be his third pole in the last five races this season and in both previous events, he finished in the top five with a best of second at Richmond.

More Indy Racing League Newsbreakers

N'Wide: Dollar General 300 results, with avg. finish

You get the feeling that Joey Logano was playing with the field. In the first half of the race, he ran away from the field until NASCAR threw one of their legendary "debris" cautions—even though we never saw the debris. Kyle Busch beat him out of the pits and for a while it appeared the teenager would have some competition, but as the race started to wind down, the No. 20 charged to the front once more. Even on old tires in a 10-lap shootout versus nine other drivers on the lead lap with either two or four new tires, Logano not only held his advantage, he stretched it.

Busch held on for second, which was the fourth time this season that Joe Gibbs Racing finished 1-2. Logano has won three of these at Nashville, Kentucky and now Chicagoland, with Busch winning last week at New Hampshire. For the record, Roush Racing has also finished 1-2 on one occasion at Vegas, with Greg Biffle beating Carl Edwards to the line. In that race, Todd Braun finished third and fourth with Brian Vickers and Jason Leffler taking those spots respectively. Notably, those two drivers finished in the same position Friday night at Chicagoland.

Results, with average finish

Finish	Start	Driver	Laps	Laps Led	Status	Avg Fin
1	3	Joey Logano	200	96	Running	1.00
2	6	Kyle Busch	200		Running	16.33
3	2	Brian Vickers	200	2	Running	10.25
4	12	Jason Leffler	200		Running	18.83
5	10	Kevin Harvick	200		Running	13.86
6	1	Carl Edwards	200	17	Running	9.60
7	17	Greg Biffle	200	1	Running	19.63
8	13	David Reutimann	200		Running	15.50
9	15	Mike Bliss	200	1	Running	15.75
10	9	Justin Allgaier	200		Running	10.00
11	16	Jeff Burton	200		Running	4.86
12	8	Trevor Bayne	199		Running	12.00
13	25	Brendan Gaughan	199		Running	13.00
14	11	Paul Menard	198		Running	21.00
15	26	Scott Wimmer	198		Running	14.00
16	21	Steve Wallace	198		Running	24.00
17	18	Michael Annett	198		Running	17.00
18	14	Brad Keselowski	197		Running	11.67
19	35	Jason Keller	197		Running	14.13
20	30	Scott Lagasse Jr	197		Running	20.00
21	22	John Wes Townley	197		Running	21.00
22	4	Ryan Newman	197	5	Running	23.50
23	34	Tony Raines	196		Running	16.50
24	24	Joe Nemechek	196		Running	19.83
25	39	Michael McDowell	196		Running	25.00
26	29	Shelby Howard	196		Running	26.00
27	37	Kenny Wallace	196		Running	27.29
28	41	Robert Richardson	195		Running	28.00
29	23	Danny O'Quinn Jr	194		Running	30.00
30	27	Dennis Setzer	194		Running	30.00
31	38	Eric McClure	194		Running	34.67
32	40	Matt Carter	189		Running	32.00
33	42	Mike Harmon	185		Running	29.33
34	5	David Ragan	107		Running	22.00
35	43	Jeremy Clements	92		Steering	35.00
36	36	Derrike Cope	24		Start and Park	36.33
37	31	Casey Atwood	19		Start and Park	23.00
38	33	Mike Wallace	19		Start and Park	22.00
39	32	Kevin Lepage	15		Start and Park	27.17
40	7	Kelly Bires	8		Start and Park	25.33
41	19	Terry Cook	6		Start and Park	41.00
42	20	Kertus Davis	2		Start and Park	39.33
43	28	Mark Green	1		Start and Park	32.00
44		Johnny Chapman	0		Did Not Qualify	37.00
45		J C Stout	0		Did Not Qualify
46		Stanton Barrett	0		Did Not Qualify	29.20
47		Kevin Hamlin	0		Did Not Qualify
48		Morgan Shepherd	0		Did Not Qualify	42.00
49		Brian Keselowski	0		Did Not Qualify

More Nationwide Newsbreakers