Austin Dillon claims ACS pole after no one makes a time

Austin Dillon proved that you have to be lucky and good in qualifying for Sunday’s Auto Club 400 at the Auto Club Speedway.

The driver of the No. 3 Dow Chemical Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing led the first two 10-minute qualifying session on his way to his fourth career Busch Pole award. NASCAR reverted to the Q2 times when no driver posted an official time in the five-minute pole shootout.

With drafting key to a fast lap at the 2.0-mile superspeedway, drivers hesitated to make runs in all three sessions. The final group was the most extreme with no one taking off until less than a minute to go, which was too late for anyone to cross the start/finish line in time to turn a lap.

Every session featured a last-minute dash with nearly all drivers waiting until just over a minute to go to attempt their qualifying lap. Kurt Busch was the only driver to break the trend in Q2 and logged a lap of 40.644 seconds by himself.

The rest of the field took their laps with just over a minute and 15 seconds to go. When it was all said and done, Dillon was the man on top being the only driver in the 39-second bracket (39.982s).

Dillon, who also won the pole at ACS in 2016, noted that finding an open hole in the pack made all the difference in session two.

“That goes back to round two with Andy Houston (Dillon’s spotter), getting us a hole,” said Dillon. “Our Dow car has been good the whole day, I felt that it was the fastest car here. It feels good to get that pole.

The pole is Dillon's the fourth of his Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series career.

“The 18 took off, and I was edging back and forth. My spotter was counting down the time, and I knew that 45 was our drop-dead time. Just kinda off waited and if no one wanted to make it, I was good because it reverted back to us."

Kevin Harvick matched his best starting spot at ACS with the second quickest time. His Stewart Haas Racing teammate Aric Almirola was third while three-time ACS winner Kyle Busch will chase his 200th NASCAR sanctioned win from the fourth spot.

Las Vegas winner Joey Logano rounded out the top five and Denny Hamlin will start sixth.

Ryan Newman will make his best starting spot of the season from seventh while Chase Elliott recovered from a spin in Q1 to start eighth.

Clint Bowyer made it three SHR cars in the top ten with ninth and Phoenix pole-sitter Ryan Blaney completed the top ten.

Two former winners at ACS, Kurt Busch and Martin Truex, Jr., find themselves mired down the starting order due to qualifying mishaps. Busch's single-car run did not pay off, and was left in 21st spot.

Truex, Jr. was held up by the slower car of Cody Ware on his hot lap which left him in the 27th position.