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Dillon Earns First Career Pole
ROOKIES MAKE UP FRONT ROW FOR US CELLULAR 200
NEWTON, Iowa - Austin Dillon won his first NASCAR race in his first start. Now he has his first Coors Light Pole Award in start No. 2.
The 18-year-old grandson had the fastest time in Sunday afternoon's qualifying for the US Cellular 200 at Iowa Speedway. Dillon (No. 3 Garage Equipment Supply) had a lap of 23.576 seconds/133.610 mph around the 7/8-mile oval.
"It's cool," said Dillon. "We were really good in practice. I though we had a little bit more than what we had. It ended up being just good enough."
The NASCAR Camping World Series race is scheduled for 4:15 p.m. ET. Jeff Barkshire, another rookie, was second fastest in qualifying at 23.686/132.990. Barkshire ran just one qualifying lap.
Alex Haase and NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Kasey Kahne qualified third and fourth, respectively. The 18-year-old Haase, running for Kyle Busch Motorsports, had a lap of 23.694/132.945. Kahne's best lap was 23.723/132.783. Kahne arrived at the track early Sunday morning after winning the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Challenge at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte, N.C.
"It's going to be a long race," Dillon said. "Hopefully we can stay out front and have a good race."
Said Barkshire: "When you look at the cars that are here, to be in the front row - right in front of Kasey Kahne - is pretty neat. Hopefully we can run up there. I think we can."
Barkshire was one of the fastest cars in Saturday's practice, but slipped to ninth in Sunday morning's session. He wasn't worried, though, because he didn't make a qualifying run during that practice.
"We did chase the car a little bit," Barkshire said. "We made some changes hoping to make it better. It didn't. We went back to pretty much what we had Saturday."
Dillon's teammate, Peyton Sellers, qualified fifth. Steve Park, Brian Ickler, Trevor Bayne, David Mayhew, and Jim Inglebright.
NASCAR Camping World Series points leader Mike David qualified 30th in the 44-car field. Eric Holmes, who enters the race 17 points behind David, will start 22nd. Championship contenders Austin Cameron (21st), Moses Smith (24th) and Jeff Jefferson (28th) also struggled in qualifying.
Among the NASCAR Camping World Series East drivers, second-place Marc Davis (25th), third-place Ben Stancill (34th), fourth-place Eddie MacDonald (20th), and fifth-place Ricky Carmichael (36th) will also start in the second half of the field.
