51 cars entered the race, ten of whom had attempted less than 20 races in 2004: Ryan McGlynn (#00), Greg Sacks (#13), Kevin Lepage (#37), Carl Long (#46), Tony Raines (#51), Klaus Graf (#59), Mike Garvey (#75), Mario Gosselin (#80), Brad Teague (#94), and Chad Chaffin (#98) [REF].
In qualifying, Ryan Newman won the pole with a lap time of 19.513 seconds and a speed of , more than 3/10th's faster than the previous record[REF] of set by Tony Stewart in 2000 [REF].