Folks, don’t adjust your computer monitors… Shane Van Gisbergen has secured the pole for Friday’s NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Black’s Tire 250 at Richmond Raceway.
The Auckland, New Zealand-native, making his fourth career start in the NASCAR Truck Series at the 0.75-mile racetrack, laid down a quick time of 23.168 seconds (116.540mph) to win the pole for the penultimate event of the regular-season.
Van Gisbergen is pulling double-duty this weekend in Richmond, Virginia, piloting the No. 7 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Silverado RST in Friday’s 250-lap Truck Series event, where he’s serving as a replacement for the late Kyle Busch. The 37-year-old driver will also run Saturday’s NASCAR Cup Series event for Trackhouse Racing.
The three-time Supercars champion becomes the third foreign-born driver to win a pole in each of NASCAR’s National Series, joining Daniel Suarez and Marcos Ambrose.
“Pretty awesome,” Van Gisbergen told Josh Sims post-qualifying. “We had a pretty good work and these guys helped me get comfortable, pretty amazing to do that I’m stoked and yeah, see how it goes in the race, but Cup practice and qualifying, now, and I don’t know what to say, that’s awesome.”
Kaden Honeycutt was second-quickest in qualifying and will start on the outside of the front row for tonight’s 250-lapper at Richmond Raceway. Chandler Smith will roll from third, with Grant Enfinger in fourth, and Nick Leitz, with a stunning qualifying effort, rounds out the top-five.
Parker Eatmon will start a career-best sixth, with Ty Majeski, Andres Perez De Lara, Stewart Friesen, and Tyler Ankrum rounding out the top-10.
Other notables include Layne Riggs in 11th, Christian Eckes 12th, Tristan McKee, making his NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series debut, in 13th, Gio Ruggiero in 14th, Corey Heim in 16th, Christopher Bell in 17th, Justin Haley, in the first Kaulig-built RAM chassis in 19th, and Daniel Hemric in 20th.
Elliott Sadler, making his return to NASCAR as part of the Kaulig Free Agent Program, will start 32nd.
With 39 cars entered this weekend at Richmond, three drivers were forced to pack up and head home early, those being Kasey Kleyn (#27 Rackley WAR), Caleb Costner (#93 Costner Motorsports), and Justin Caroll (#90 Terry Carroll Motorsports).
The Black’s Tire 250 will take place Friday, August 14 at 7:30 PM ET on FOX Sports 1.
