Austin Dillon has had the fastest single-car speed in the NASCAR XFINITY Series all weekend long at Talladega Superspeedway. Dillon won both the first and second round of qualifying, and was the only car to run a lap under 53 seconds. This is Dillon’s third consecutive pole on a restrictor plate track, the other two both coming at Daytona.
“We worked on it yesterday, to see the faster we could get up to speed it seemed like it helped our speed all around,” said Dillon discussing his pole win. “The engine package that we have in the XFINITY Series getting up to speed is pretty important. It all goes out to these Rheem guys, they have spent counltess hours in the shop working on it and ECR engines swept, 1-2-3. That says a lot.”
Historically, qualifying at Talladega has had little to no effect on the outcome of the race. Thus due to the restrictor plate that makes for pack-racing. Well for the NASCAR XFINITY Series, Saturday morning qualifying session was a bit different.
Over the past couple of seasons all of NASCAR has had “group qualifying.” Group qualifying is fun to watch, except on the restrictor plate tracks of Daytona and Talladega when virtually it was just a mess. Starting at Talladega, NASCAR has gone back to the familiar one car at-a-time session on the plate tracks. However, the cars will only record one lap instead of the traditional two, with the fastest 12 cars to compete in the final round to run for the pole.
It was a Richard Childress Racing trio that paced the first session of qualifying. Austin Dillon led the way followed by brother Ty Dillon and XFINITY Series veteran, Brian Scott. The fourth member of Richard Childress Racing team, Brendan Gaughan was 10th.
“I don’t think we have anything for those RCR cars, they are really fast, so I don’t know if we have a shot at the pole,” said Daytona winner Ryan Reed prior to the beginning of the second round.
Much like the first round, it was the trio of Richard Childress Racing who swept the first three positions. Fellow teammate Gaughan improved his speed and will start from seventh place.
Former Talladega winner Regan Smith will start 11th at Talladega. He will look to win his second career race at Talladega in the last three years. Last year he finished a disappointing third.
“We’ve had fast racecars here at Jr Motorpsorts and awesome superspeedway cars,” said Smith when discussing how he runs so well at restrictor plate tracks. “Today, the car is fast and we know when we get in the pack and we get racing with it and it does what I want it to do, it will make the moves that I want it to make.”
Big name drivers such as defending NASCAR XFINITY Series champion Chase Elliott, Joey Logano and Kasey Kahne failed to make the second round of qualifying. Elliot lines-up from 14th on the starting grid, while Logano will start 16th in the Winn-Dixie 300, and Kahne will begin the race from the 17th position.
The five drivers who failed to make the race are Chris Cockrum, Mike Harmon, Bobby Gerhart, Derrike Cope and Carlos Contreras.
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