MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Ben Rhodes not only made his sponsor proud Saturday morning at Martinsville Speedway, he led a ThorSport Racing sweep of the top three positions in NASCAR Camping World Truck Series qualifying for the Alpha Energy Solutions 250.
Rhodes steadily improved over each of the three knockout rounds, jumping from 10th in round one to third in round two before he set the pole-winning lap of 19.737 seconds (95.942 mph) in the final round with his No. 41 Alpha Energy Solutions Ford F-150.
The pole is the third of Rhodes’ Truck Series career and his second at Martinsville.
“Honestly, I didn’t feel like it was a pole lap!” Rhodes admitted. “When Eddie (Troconis, crew chief) said P1 I was really surprised. We’d run a 20.06 the lap before and I didn’t think I could get much more out of it, but luckily it came to life and we took off and got the pole speed we needed. Man, I was nervous, though. I thought I was going to be stuck in sixth or something!”
“I’d like to say this makes everything easier, but the last time I got the pole here, Kyle Busch was on my outside and he almost got the lead from me. I had to really work for it then, but once we got the lead established, I got away for 40 or 50 laps. Hopefully we can lead longer than that and win one today.”
Matt Crafton will flank Rhodes on the front row, posting the second-fastest time of 19.786 seconds (95.704 mph) in the No. 88 Ideal Door/Menards Ford, while Grant Enfinger starts from the inside of row two in third (19.810/95.588) with the No. 98 Champion/Curb Records Ford.
Kyle Benjamin and Stewart Friesen completed the top five.
Also advancing to the final round were Johnny Sauter, Brett Moffitt, John Hunter Nemechek, Myatt Snider, Cody Coughlin, Noah Gragson and Justin Haley. They will fill out positions six through 12, respectively.
Rookie Harrison Burton ended the second round as the top driver not to advance, putting his No. 51 DEX Imaging Toyota 13th on the grid after a lap of 19.981 seconds (94.770 mph).
Other notables mired in the middle of the pack include Austin Hill (15th), veteran Timothy Peters (16th), Dalton Sargeant (18th), rookie Reid Wilson (20th) and Todd Gilliland (23rd), who led the opening knockout round but failed to turn a lap in round two.
Jordan Anderson was the first driver below the cut line in the opening 15 minute session; qualifying 25th with his No. 3 Lucas Oil/Bommarito Chevrolet with a time of 20.414 seconds (92.760 mph).
Mike Harmon was the lone driver who failed to qualify for Saturday afternoon’s race.
Though winter weather is in the area, the Alpha Energy Solutions 250 is scheduled to take the green flag at 2 p.m. ET.
