Gordon

FORT WORTH, Texas — Jeff Gordon is 0-for-Texas, shut out of Victory Lane a dozen times.

There are only two other active tracks where Gordon hasn't won a race, but the 1½-mile, high-banked Texas circuit is the only one where the four-time Cup champion doesn't have any kind of NASCAR victory. He did win Busch races at Phoenix and Homestead.

Gordon gets another chance in the Lone Star State this weekend, and the series points leader will start from the pole for the Samsung 500 after qualifying was canceled Friday because of severe storms. The field was set by owner points.

"If we've ever had a chance of a Hendrick car winning here, or ourselves winning here, it's the year," Gordon said.

Even though Gordon hasn't won a race this season, Hendrick Motorsports is trying to become the first team since Petty Enterprises in 1971 to win five consecutive races. Jimmie Johnson, who starts third Sunday, has won three of the past four races and Kyle Busch had the other victory in that stretch.

Like Gordon, none of his teammates have won at Texas. But all finished in the top nine spots there last fall.

"This is a continuation from last year," said Jeff Burton, the Childress driver who starts second. "The 24 (Gordon) and 48 (Johnson) have been really good and no, I don't think you've been making too much of (the Hendrick streak). ... They have put themselves in position to win almost every race."

Gordon has finished second three times this season, twice behind teammate Johnson.

Michael Waltrip will miss his sixth straight race because he didn't have enough season points to get into the 43-car field. The only of Waltrip's three Toyotas that made it in was Dale Jarrett, who got in on a past champion provisional. David Reutimann didn't qualify.

The latest setback for Waltrip comes less than a week after the two-time Daytona 500 winner was charged with reckless driving and failing to report an accident after hitting a telephone pole and rolling his SUV about a mile from his North Carolina home.

Waltrip didn't talk to reporters Friday.

Matt Kenseth, Busch, Mark Martin, Denny Hamlin, Clint Bowyer, Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards rounded out the top 10 starting spots in Texas.

There has never been a repeat winner in the 12 Cup races at Texas. Terry Labonte is the only former winner not racing this weekend — and the only Hendrick driver to win at TMS (1999).

Johnson is at Texas for the eighth time, and is coming off a runner-up finish to Tony Stewart last fall. Johnson's worst finish is 11th.

The best of Busch's four races at Texas was last fall when he finished fourth. Mears, the Hendrick newcomer, has four top-10 finishes in six TMS starts.

While Edwards is dominating the Busch Series this year, with a 321-point lead and two straight victories, he hasn't been able to do his trademark celebration backflip after a Cup race since November 2005 in Texas.

"It doesn't really seem like that long ago," Edwards said.

But it's been 44 Cup races since Edwards won at Texas, his second straight and fourth victory in the Roush Racing driver's first full Cup season. Edwards has won six times in his last 42 Busch races.