Photo Credit: Noel Lanier
Virginia is for lovers, and right now, Austin Dillon loves Virginia.
Dillon scored his 17th career NASCAR XFINITY Series pole, and first of 2016 at Richmond International Raceway. Dillon’s lap of 22.563 in round three of qualifying beat out Alex Bowman for the pole by six one-thousandths of a second.
Joining Dillon and Bowman in the top-1o are Justin Allgaier, Erik Jones, Blake Koch, Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch, Elliott Sadler, Dakoda Armstrong and Daniel Suarez.
Despite Austin Dillon winning the pole for Friday night’s race, his three Richard Childress Racing teammates struggled in qualifying. Dillon’s brother Ty qualified 18th with Brendan Gaughan 19th and their rookie teammate Brandon Jones qualified way back in 33rd.
Qualifying was halted early in the first round of qualifying for the No. 25 of Chris Cockrum. Cockrum blew an engine on his first lap, and dropped oil causing a red flag.
The two drivers who failed to qualify for Friday night’s Virginia 529 College Savings 250 are Austin Theriault in the No. 77 for Obaika Racing and Morgan Shepherd’s No. 89 Chevrolet.
