Ty Dillon is quickly finding his place in the ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards. As in, first place.
Dillon captured the pole position Thursday at Talladega Superspeedway for the running of the 3 Amigos 250, which is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. CDT Friday. It is only Dillon’s fifth start in the ARCA Racing Series, but it already is his third pole to go along with two victories.
“It’s going really well so far,” said Dillon, who is the grandson of longtime NASCAR team owner Richard Childress. “If the rest of our season can go as well as it has, we’ll have a lot of trophies and hopefully a championship trophy, because that’s what we’re going for.
“I knew we had the equipment and the cars and the resources. It puts it in my hands on the track. The guys working on the car have already proved themselves. Now I have to prove myself.”
Dillon turned in a fast lap of 183.681 mph. That was barely good enough to edge out Kyle Fowler for the pole. Fowler will join Dillon on the front row for the start of Friday’s race after posting a speed of 183.578 mph.
“It seemed like a perfect lap to me, just as smooth as I could be, but it wasn’t quite enough,” Fowler said. “Maybe I should have lunged forward at the start-finish line. It’s just splitting hairs at this point, we’re so close. It’s kind of frustrating.
“We had a great car throughout practice. Now if we can just step that up a little bit. I feel like we have a lot of momentum coming into this race.”
Maryeve Dufault qualified third with a speed of 183.434 in only her second career superspeedway stock-car race. A native of Quebec, Dufault has previously raced in such open-wheel series as the Pro Mazda Star Series and Formula BMW USA.
“Coming from open-wheel and being a rookie in stock car, I think we did great,” Dufault said. “This track can be intimidating. You have a few challenges here and there. You have to be mistake-free when you’re out there. There are little things that I’m still getting used to. But I’m really happy with how we did.”
Tim George Jr. qualified fourth with a speed of 182.958, and Scott Lagasse Jr. was fifth at 182.741.
Bobby Gerhart, who won the season-opening ARCA race at Daytona International Speedway, qualified 11th, defending race champion Dakoda Armstrong will start 14th, and Alabama native Grant Enfinger qualified in 18th position.
UPDATE: Maryeve Dufault failed post race inspection for the 3 Amigos 250. Tim George Jr. will now start in third place.
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