HAMPTON, Ga. – Kyle Busch pushed his record to two-for-two in qualifying at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Saturday morning, capturing the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series pole ahead of the Active Pest Control 200.
Driving his own No. 4 Toyota, Busch toured the 1.5-mile quad-oval in 30.844 seconds (179.743 mph) to claim his 19th career pole in the series, one year after Christopher Bell took a KBM truck from the pole to the win in Atlanta.
Busch will look to replicate that effort carrying the same number come race time at 4:30 p.m.
“That lap was pretty good. The truck certainly felt more stuck than it was the first time around, but the truck still drove solid both times out and had good speed in it,” said Busch, who led both knockout rounds. “We picked up a little bit of time on the second run, and it’s always good to show improvement.”
“We were really, really tight here last year and we made some good changes to (our gameplan) through the offseason to make it better and come back better prepared. Our truck is already a lot closer and hopefully we can go get them in the race tonight.”
Busch’s pole effort was also the first time he’s topped qualifying in a truck at a track other than Bristol Motor Speedway since June of 2014 at Kentucky Speedway.
The 2015 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion has won four times in a Truck at Atlanta, but never in a KBM-owned entry. His four prior wins came with Billy Ballew Motorsports, the last of which was from the pole in 2009.
Two-time series champion Matt Crafton will join Busch on the front row, posting a lap of 30.934 seconds (179.220 mph) in his No. 88 Menards Ford F-150. Crafton was the 2015 race winner at Atlanta.
Two more KBM Toyotas will fill out the second row of the grid, with Noah Gragson and Spencer Davis qualifying third and fourth, respectively. Justin Haley’s GMS Racing Chevrolet completed the top five.
Dalton Sargeant, Stewart Friesen, Cody Coughlin, Johnny Sauter, Brett Moffitt, Joe Nemechek and Jesse Little completed the dozen drivers who made the final round of qualifying.
Austin Dillon (31.196/177.715) was the first driver below the cut line at the end of round one and will start 13th in the No. 20 GoShare Chevrolet.
Other notables starting deep in the field include Ben Rhodes (14th), Grant Enfinger (16th), Myatt Snider (19th) and Jordan Anderson (25th).
With 34 trucks on the grounds going for 32 starting spots, Tim Viens and Travis Kvapil were the two drivers who failed to qualify.
