MIDLAND, N.C. – Josh Berry started off the knockout qualifying era for the CARS Late Model Stock Tour by nabbing the Hedgecock Racing Pole Award on Saturday ahead of the season-opening Circle Track Warehouse 200 at Concord Speedway.

Berry fell just short of Austin McDaniel in the opening round, but rallied back in the run for the pole, posting a time of 16.325 seconds (110.260 mph) to reset the CARS Tour track record at the half-mile triangular oval.

The effort puts Berry in prime position to replicate his win in the CARS Tour race at Concord from last fall.

“That last run was really good,” Berry said after climbing from his No. 88 Liberty Performance Components Chevrolet. “We’ve been really good since we unloaded here on Friday. It’s been a lot of fun these past couple days. That was a good lap for us, but we’ve still got a long road ahead of us, with a lot of unknowns coming in today’s race.”

“We did our job. We wanted to get the pole, get the number one pit stall and hopefully that’ll allow us to stay out of trouble. I feel like we’ve got a great race car … we’ve just got to keep doing our jobs when it comes race time.”

NASCAR Camping World Truck Series regular Myatt Snider timed in second-fastest (16.440/109.489) in his familiar No. 2 NASCAR America late model, slotting in on the outside of the front row after his lap in the final round.

Deac McCaskill rallied from a penalty in the opening round, where he was docked half his time in the opening round, to qualify third ahead of opening round leader Austin McDaniel and Craig Moore.

Layne Riggs, Justin Johnson and Brandon Grosso rounded out the eight drivers who made it through both rounds of knockout qualifying.

Berry’s JR Motorsports teammate Anthony Alfredo was the first driver who failed to advance to the final round, and the Connecticut native will start ninth after a lap of 16.633 seconds (108.219 mph).

Other notables starting deep in the field include C.E. Falk (12th), Justin Carroll (13th), Stefan Parsons (18th) and Colby Howard (20th).

Qualifying results can be viewed on the next page…