DOVER, Del. – Brandon Jones has taken a liking to concrete race tracks this season, backing up a strong showing last month at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway with a pole effort in NASCAR Xfinity Series qualifying Saturday morning at Dover Int’l Speedway.
Jones took the No. 19 XYO Networks Toyota Camry to a lap of 23.102 seconds (155.831 mph) around the one-mile, high-banked concrete oval, scoring his second Xfinity Series pole and first at the Monster Mile.
“We need XYO on the car more often! We scored our best-career finish with them last week and now we’ve got a pole today,” noted Jones. “This is a driver’s track, too, which is really special for me. I got a pole at Daytona last year, but we all know how that place is, so to be able to have raw speed is awesome.
“We ran great at Bristol and I feel like there are a lot of similarities between that track and this one, so hopefully we’ll have a good afternoon and be able to go after that $100,000 (Dash 4 Cash bonus).”
Jones is one of four Dash 4 Cash contenders vying for the six-figure bonus check in Saturday afternoon’s OneMain Financial 200. He’s joined by Justin Allgaier, Elliott Sadler and Ryan Sieg.
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series regular Noah Gragson, one of Jones’ Joe Gibbs Racing teammates, joins him on the front row. Gragson posted a lap of 23.132 seconds (155.481 mph) in the No. 18 Switch Toyota Camry.
Four Chevrolets filled out the next two rows of the starting grid, with Matt Tifft, Sadler, Daniel Hemric and Allgaier lining up third through sixth, respectively.
Austin Cindric was the fastest Ford driver in seventh. Ryan Truex, Ty Majeski, Jeb Burton, Johnny Sauter and Ryan Reed completed the top dozen and all made the third knockout round.
Surprise Dash 4 Cash contender Ryan Sieg was the first driver who failed to make the final round, qualifying 13th-fastest with a lap of 23.463 seconds (152.639 mph) in his No. 39 RSS Racing Chevrolet.
Other notables mired in the mid-pack for the start of the race include JGL Racing teammates Dylan Lupton (14th) and Kaz Grala (16th), as well as Ross Chastain (18th) and Joey Gase (21st).
Due to pre-qualifying inspection woes, nine drivers were unable to post a lap in the first round of qualifying, including heavy hitters like Tyler Reddick, Christopher Bell, John Hunter Nemechek, Cole Custer and Michael Annett.
They will all come from the rear of the field in Saturday afternoon’s race in hopes of capturing Dover’s iconic Miles the Monster trophy.
Mike Harmon was the lone driver who failed to qualify for the 40-car starting field.
To view the complete starting grid, advance to the next page.
