RICHMOND, Va. - Rusty Wallace added another line to his glittering short-track resume Friday, winning the pole for tonight's Pontiac 400 at Richmond International Raceway.

Wallace, who has half of his career short-track victories at the .75-mile Richmond track, took advantage of drawing the 46th spot in a 47-car qualifying order to run 124.740 mph and bump Steve Park to the outside of the front row.

Park had run 124.499 mph as the 43rd qualifier on a day when bright sunshine and warm temperatures made things tough on those who ran early in the afternoon session. Seventeen of the first 26 cars to go out failed to nail down one of the 25 spots available on Friday, while 16 of the final 21 made the cut.

Among the top 10 qualifiers on Tony Stewart, who went out 18th, made his qualifying run before the 28th spot in the order.

Wallace, who won at Bristol earlier this season for his 12th career short-track triumph, finished 14th in the most recent race here last September. That was Wallace's worst finish at Richmond and only the second time in the past 22 races here he hadn't finished seventh or better.

"I'm always pumped up when I get to Richmond," said Wallace, who last won here in March of 1997. "Richmond is a cool joint."

It might not be so cool today, when the afternoon temperature is expected to climb to nearly 90 degrees. That could make the track very slick in the early part of tonight's 400-lap race and then force the teams to make a lot of adjustments to their chassis as darkness sets in and the weather cools.

"The slicker the track it starts to really separate the people who work on the chassis and get them good," Wallace said. "This track is back like it was four or five years ago, it's got almost no sealer whatsoever on it, it's real greasy and slick and I'm feeling pretty good about that because I won most of my races on that kind of track."

Park thought his lap might be good enough to give him his second short-track pole of the season - he started first at Bristol - but Wallace trumped him.

"Rusty is just too good here," Park said. "He went out there on his first lap and was third. I was hoping he'd get tired on the second lap or something."

Park has qualified in the top 10 in five of the past eight Winston Cup races. He had only six top-10 starts all last season.

"We struggled a lot in qualifying last year," Park said. "We put our heads together over the winter and decided we're going to have to work on our qualifying efforts. We built new cars for Martinsville and Richmond and it has paid off for us."

Mike Skinner continued his streak of good qualifying runs by posting the third best lap at 124.493 mph in the No. 31 Chevrolet. Skinner, who won the pole last week at California, will make his sixth straight start of 11th or better tonight.

"I really kind of blew it on the first lap," said Skinner, who went out 30th. "I drove it in the corner too hard down there in Turn 1. Whenever you've got a shot at the pole, yo put that driver factor in there and get a little extra. In this case, the driver hurt us."

Skinner said he couldn't complain too much about the weather. Last weekend at California he got an early draw and was able to make his run before the sun burned through clouds and made it tougher on the cars running later.

Geoffrey Bodine, making his return to the Winston Cup circuit tonight after missing the season's first 10 races, came back in style on Friday with a lap 124.161 mph to earn the spot on the outside of Row 2 beside Skinner.

"It was a great run, but I'm still disappointed we didn't get the pole," said Bodine, who was injured in a crash in a NASCAR Truck series race at Daytona on Feb. 16. "This is a really good race car. This team has worked really hard and they've suffered this year with me not being in the car.

"I love everything about this business. It doesn't get any better than this."

Dale Earnhardt Jr., running at a track where he won twice in the Grand National series and finished 10th in his five-race Winston Cup foray last season, starts fifth tonight after closing the qualifying session with a lap at 123.990.

"We ran 10th in the Cup race here without any brakes," said Earnhardt Jr., who posted his eighth top-10 qualifying effort of the season. "When we had brakes, we were a ball of fire."

Ricky Rudd, Stewart, Wally Dallenbach, Bobby Labonte and Bill Elliott rounded out the top 10. Mark Martin will start 11th, Ward Burton 13th, Jeff Gordon 15th, Dale Jarrett 18th and Jeremy Mayfield 20th.

Among those failing to make the top 25 Friday were Jeff Burton, Terry Labonte, Dale Earnhardt, Ken Schrader, Kyle Petty, Darrell Waltrip, Elliott Sadler, Matt Kenseth and Michael Waltrip, who hit the wall twice during his qualifying attempt.