Photo Credit: Noel Lanier
At the end of qualifying for the Great Clips 200 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, it’d be Matt Crafton posting the quickest lap to score his 12th career pole. Crafton will lead the field to the green flag later on today after posting a quick time of 30.836 seconds.
“Our Toyota Tundra is good,” he said. “We didn’t work on qualifying runs yesterday, but rather race runs. We ran 24 to 26 laps those last couple of runs. I didn’t know what to expect and to post a lap like that is great. Today is a new day, and hopefully it’s still quick
Crafton came into the weekend with confidence as he is driving the same truck that he dominated with in the season-finale last season at Homestead-Miami Speedway, and is the defending race winner.
He will be joined on the front row by John Wes Townley, who missed earning the pole by 0.018 seconds.
“It’s a tough race track and all about tire management here,” Townley said. “I think we have a good racing truck. We were good in race trim yesterday and if it is holds out, which I think it will, hopefully we will have a quick truck today.”
Rookies Christopher Bell and Grant Enfinger will make up the second row as both continued to carry over their speed. Both drivers qualified well at Daytona last weekend and ran up front, but found themselves taken out in big wrecks throughout the event. Bell went tumbling end-over-end on the final lap, while Enfinger was one of the many drivers taken out in the big wreck.
“It’s kind of disappointing after you put the quick time the first set, and you don’t back it up the second set,” Bell admitted. “But everybody picked it up and we slowed down a little. It felt good yesterday, so hopefully we have a good truck in the race.”
Cameron Hayley rounded out the top-five as he enters his sophomore season of competition. Hayley is driving the same truck that Crafton dominated with at Atlanta Motor Speedway last year.
“Well I think our Cabinets by Hayley Tundra was good in race runs yesterday,” Hayley said. “We were lacking in Q-run speed yesterday, and were quicker today so pleased with the gains that the guys have made on the truck.”
Cole Custer qualified sixth, followed by Ben Rhodes, Ryan Truex, Daniel Hemric and Ben Kennedy.
“I think we’re pretty solid,” Custer said. “I think we were a little tight in qualifying that comes in making a small circle to put down a good lap. The truck was solid in practice, so hope we have a good run tonight.”
Norm Benning, Ryan Ellis, Korbin Forrister, Jordan Anderson and Timothy Viens failed to qualify for the race.
