Photo Credit: Noel Lanier/OnPitRoad.com
With a lap of 20.778 seconds, Kasey Kahne kicked off his first truck start of the season as he scored the pole award for the North Carolina Lottery 200 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Kahne’s pole marks the first pole for JR Motorsports in only the team’s second truck start.
‘That was far from controlled,” Kahne said of qualifying. “I don’t know what that was, but I was able to make it work. i had a couple trucks side drafting, but was able to get away and draft off of the 29. it worked out for us – I don’t know how.”
With the draft being important, everybody waited out the session – trying to not be the first truck off pit road, but also in the right spot in line. They sat and waited till there was 38 seconds left on the clock before Ben Kennedy would lead them off pit road. Kahne was able to be in the back half of the 12-truck draft, getting the right toe needed from Brad Keselowski.
Erik Jones tried the same startegy that he won him the pole at Kansas Speedway in being the final truck in line, but came up short as he qualified second.
“It’s so tough to put yourself in the right position, and time was running so thin that I had to pick it up and not get the gap that I wanted,” he commented. “I thought we had a enough, but the 88 got a little tight and I wasn’t able to get the draft that I needed. Looking forward to getting behind the wheel of the truck and getting it to victory lane later tonight.”
Brad Keselowski would have a solid effort, qualifying third in a session that he called “an adventure”, followed by Daniel Hemric and Scott Lagasse Jr.. Tyler Reddick qualified sixth, followed by Ray Black Jr., Ben Kennedy, John Wes Townley and Corbin Forrester.
The waiting game played out in both the second and third round of qualifying, and resulted in some drivers not getting a timed lap in during the second round.
Everybody took off about halfway through the second session, but a red flag came out with five minutes and 45 seconds remaining due to Justin Boston going around on the frontstretch after getting loose coming off of turn four. When the session resumed, the drivers waited till there was 45 seconds remaining on the clock. As they came back to the flag, all heck broke loose as Spencer Gallagher got loose, going around, resulting in a caution flag. The combination of the clock running out and Gallagher going around resulted in only the top nine trucks posting a lap in the second round. The next three spots that transferred to round three were determined by round one lap times.
Cameron Hayley was the first driver to not transfer from the second round, which marks the second time this has happened to him, a situation that he calls annoying.
“This new qualifying deal is a tough thing to get a handle, but our Tundra was fast,” he added. “I think we have a good truck for tonight. Obviously qualifying didn’t work out well for us but I think we’ll have a good truck for tonight.”
David Gilliland will start 14th, followed by Brandon Jones, Joe Nemechek, Timothy Peters, Gallagher, Johnny Sauter, Tyler Young, Mason Mingus and Boston.
“It’s just a joke, but it’s the rules so you have to abide by it,” Peters said. “Everybody at Red Horse and Toyota deserves better so we’ll just get back to the front as fast as we can. Truck has speed, but it’s just ridiculous.”
Ryan Ellis, Todd Peck and Brandon Brown would fail to qualify for the event.
