Teenager grabs 21 Means 21 Award; Keselowski’s trucks crash
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Erik Jones won the 21 Means 21 Pole Award in Friday afternoon qualifying for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, an eventful session highlighted by a crash of both Brad Keselowski Racing entries at Kansas Speedway.
Jones sped to a track-record lap of 179.396 mph mph in the final, five-minute session on the 1.5-mile track, marking his first pole position of the season and third of his truck series career. He’ll lead the 32-truck field to the green flag in Friday night’s Toyota Tundra 250 (8:30 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1, MRN, SiriusXM).
“Nice to start out front,” said Jones, driver of the Kyle Busch Motorsports No. 4 Toyota. “Hope we can stay out there and control the race.”
Two-time defending series champion and current standings leader Matt Crafton was second-fastest at 177.509 mph in the ThorSport Racing No. 88 Toyota. Rookie Brandon Jones, Sprint Cup Series regular Ryan Newman and last year’s top rookie Ben Kennedy completed the top five.
Qualifying was interrupted at the 3:39 mark of the 10-minute second round by a heavy crash between the two BKR teammates, Tyler Reddick and Austin Theriault. Reddick lost control of his No. 19 Ford in Turn 2 and scraped the outside wall, later sliding down into the path of Theriault’s No. 29.
Theriault’s truck slammed into his teammate’s entry, spraying the track with debris. The team unloaded both reserve trucks for Friday night’s race, where they’ll have to start from the rear of the field.
“That was my first big hit,” Theriault said. “We’re going pretty fast at these mile and a halfs. Both teams strive to bring really fast trucks to the race track, and I really didn’t have anywhere to go.”
Reddick, who enters Friday night’s event second in the series standings, admitted he was having trouble in the opening round of qualifying with his truck’s handling. After the wreck, he admitted, “it’s not a very good start to our night” — a statement backed up to a certain degree by Chad Kendrick, Theriault’s crew chief.
“This is more of a challenge down the road, actually,” Kendrick said, pointing toward the series’ race next weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway. “Both teams had two really good backups ready to go. … From that point, more concerned with starting at the back now.”
Crafton was the fastest in the first of three rounds of group qualifying, edging Reddick for the top spot in the 20-minute session. Erik Jones set the pace in the second session.