HOMESTEAD, Fla. — Chase Briscoe put Brad Keselowski Racing in position to cap off its tenure in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series with a flourish by taking the pole for Friday night’s Ford EcoBoost 200 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Briscoe wasn’t fastest in the first round, but jumped to the top when it counted most. The 22-year-old native of Mitchell, Indiana took the No. 29 Cooper Standard Ford F-150 to a lap of 32.239 seconds (167.499 mph) around the 1.5-mile South Florida oval.
Friday marked the rookie driver’s fourth pole of the season.
“Man, this is cool,” said Briscoe. “To put this piece up front for BKR’s last race … obviously, it’s super special and hopefully we can convert it into something bigger at the end of the race. That would be the ultimate goal for all of us, and this team has been so close to a win all year long. I’d love nothing more than to deliver that to them tonight.”
Briscoe will be flanked by Ben Rhodes when the green flag falls for the season finale, after Rhodes timed in second-fastest (32.268/167.348) with the No. 27 Safelite Auto Glass Toyota Tundra to earn a front-row starting spot.
Briscoe’s teammate Austin Cindric was the highest of the Championship 4 in qualifying, slotting in third on the grid ahead of Grant Enfinger and Noah Gragson.
Four of the top-five on the starting grid are Sunoco Rookie of the Year contenders.
The remaining title combatants will start further back in the field, with two-time Truck champion Matt Crafton starting eighth, defending series champion Johnny Sauter rolling off 11th and Christopher Bell gridding up 13th after being the only one of the Championship 4 to miss the final round.
Bell could only muster a time of 32.666 seconds (165.309 mph) with the No. 4 JBL Toyota Tundra in the opening round, falling .039 of a second short of transferring through.
“It was tight there in qualifying,” said Bell. “The last two years, I’ve qualified decent and raced really bad. Hopefully, it’s a sign that we’ll race really good. We worked really hard on race runs in practice to make sure that our truck was really driveable and we could race good. I think it’ll pay off tonight.”
The Ford EcoBoost 200 takes the green flag at 8 p.m. ET, live on FOX Sports 1, the Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.
Full qualifying results can be viewed on the next page…
