Max Gresham and Ty Dillon Make Up Front Row For Pennsylvania ARCA 125

Max Gresham captured the pole on Friday for the ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards Pennsylvania ARCA 125 at Pocono  Raceway with a lap of 53.535 seconds.

This marks the second Meanards Pole Award presented by Ansell for the 18-year old Georgia driver of the No. 25 World Crown 300 at Gresham Motorsports Park Toyota in 10 career starts. It also marks the third pole for Venturini Motorsports at Pocono in the past two years as Mikey Kile won the pole last June while Brennan Poole won the pole this June. Venturini Motorsports has won the Menards Pole Award now four times this year with four different drivers: Josh Richards, Poole, Ryan Blaney and now Gresham.

“It was a dandy of a lap,” Gresham said. “Everything just lined up perfectly, and (Venturini Motorsports general manager) Billy (Venturini) had the car just right and we had the clouds perfect. The Toyota Camry was on a rail and I drove it for everything it had. Billy’s really happy with it right now. Hopefully, the car’s as good tomorrow as it is right now. I’m looking forward to having a good run tomorrow.”

The car that Gresham is driving is the same car that he drove to a second-place finish earlier this year at Michigan International Speedway in June, when he got passed on the last lap by rookie Ty Dillon.

“Michigan was 100 laps, and that’s 75 more miles – a two-pit stop race,” he said. “This one’s only one, so you only have one chance to get the car right if you need adjustments so it makes it a little more difficult. I’ve got to make sure I relay all of the info I need to Billy, and make sure I tell him everything I need for the race and throughout the race, so when we make our one pit stop, we’ll be ready.”

Dillon would qualify second after holding the provisional pole most of the session, 0.011 seconds off of his third consecutive pole in the series.

“I guess when it’s that close, it’s not too bad of a heartbreaker,” the driver of the No. 41 RCR/CIPT Chevrolet said. “Our car’s really fast, so this doesn’t discourage me much. (Venturini) has really fast equipment too, and they were one of the fastest cars here last time. We brought a brand new car, which I believe is twice as fast as the car we had here last time.

“We were able to lead laps and run up front the whole time last time, so we ought to be able to lead all the laps. I’m so confident in this race car. I can’t thank (crew chief Scott) “Flash” (Naset) and all the guys enough and I’m just so happy for the team.”

With the qualifying points in the books, Dillon extends his points lead over nine-time series champion Frank Kimmel to 370 points. Kimmel qualified the No. 44 Ansell/Menards Ford in 11th.

Casey Roderick, making his first start with Randy Hill Racing, qualified third (53.967 seconds), followed by Chris Buescher and Ryan Wilson. Gresham’s teammate Kyle Fowler would qualify sixth, followed by  Tim George Jr., Grant Enfinger, Chad McCumbee, and Tom Hessert comprise the remainder of the top 10.

The Pennsylvania ARCA 125 begins at 3 p.m. tomorrow, with live television coverage airing on SPEED. ARCARacing.com will feature live timing and scoring coverage of the 50-lap, 125-mile race, which will be the 53rd for the ARCA Racing Series on Pocono’s 2.5-mile triangle.