NASCAR Camping World Truck Series rookie Tyler Reddick on Friday afternoon roared to the pole for Saturday’s Fred’s 250 as the Talladega Superspeedway track record for Trucks wasn’t just broken, it was obliterated.
The old mark was 182.320 mph by a surprising name: now-retired Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series driver Mark Martin (Oct. 7, 2006).
Reddick bettered that mark by nearly 4 1/2 mph, clocking in at 186.827 mph, barely holding on to take the pole from Tayler Malsam (186.714 mph).
“I probably had the fastest truck of our group,” Reddick told Fox Sports 1. “I had no idea it was going to be a first-place qualifying position. I thought it was going to be more like sixth or seventh.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty with this qualifying program. The old style, you knew you had two laps to go out and you were done.
“But I’m glad we had the change. It got us a pole.”
Points leader Matt Crafton was third-fastest (186.427) and predicted a wild race on Saturday afternoon.
“It’s going to be chaos the whole race,” Crafton said. “We’ve got a good starting spot. All in all, it’s a good starting position.”
Johnny Sauter qualified fourth (186.278), followed by Ryan Blaney (185.517) and Erik Jones (185.301).
The rest of the top 12 qualifiers were Jeb Burton (185.273), Joe Nemechek (185.154), John Wes Townley (182.685), Mason Mingus (182.671), Chris Fontaine (182.598) and German Quiroga (175.810).
One of the biggest surprises was the qualifying effort of Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr., who will start 27th, his worst-ever start in the Truck series.
All 36 drivers that qualified made the show.
The rest of the field is:
13 Ben Kennedy 185.718
14 Ron Hornaday Jr. 185.679
15 Brennan Newberry 185.581
16 Joey Coulter 185.380
17 Daniel Suarez 185.308
18 Jimmy Weller 185.147
19 Bryan Silas 184.965
20 Clay Greenfield 184.947
21 Spencer Gallagher 184.708
22 Ryan Sieg 184.509
23 Norm Benning 183.973
24 Jennifer Jo Cobb 183.600
25 Tyler Young 181.870
26 Timothy Peters 181.697
27 Darrell Wallace Jr. 181.374
28 Ryan Ellis 179.726
29 Korbin Forrister 179.561
30 Scott Stenzel 177.806
31 Cody Ware 176.663
32 Derek White 175.590
33 Michael Affarano 175.581
34 Justin Jennings 165.999
35 Mike Harmon No Speed
36 Milka Duno No Speed
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