Every driver is out to win the race at the end of the day. Though in trying to win the race, starting well is always a good start.
Six drivers have won three consecutive poles in the NASCAR Nationwide Series – Sam Ard, Trevor Bayne, Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin, Michael Waltrip and Austin Dillon. This weekend if Dillon can win his fourth consecutive pole, he become the only driver in the series history to do that.
“That group of people is an awesome group of people to be held up against, so if we can go out there and break that six-way tie that it is right now in the Nationwide Series for poles, it would be amazing,” Dillon said earlier this week. “I’ve got the pole at Michigan actually twice I think now. We’re going to a track where I’m very capable of setting the pole. We’ve got ECR engines, some great horsepower this year. Hopefully we can get it done this weekend.”
Dillon has been strong in every qualifying session this year, with an average starting position of 4.2. His worst qualifying effort was 11th at Fontana. Dillon emphasizes that qualifying is important as it gives you track position to start with, and also a good pit stall for the race.
“(Crew Cheif) Danny Stockman does a good job with giving me something I’m very comfortable with during qualifying,” Dillon commented.”I feel like qualifying has always been something that has been not really — it just comes to me naturally from dirt racing. I’ve sat on a lot of poles in dirt cars.”
Dillon says one of his favourite memories is looking back on the pole he won for the World 100 at Eldora Speedway.
“Qualifying has just been something that I feel like getting in the car that I can go out there and hold it wide open for a lap or be in the gas the longest is something that’s been pretty simple for me,” he said.
Well his focus is on trying to be successful this year in the Nationwide Series, Dillon is also making some Sprint Cup Series starts as he looks towards moving up to the Sprint Cup Series full time in the future.
“I think most of all is these races that we have this year is to run all the laps,” he said. “I think it’s very important to gain experience throughout a full run. You go through lots of changes in a Cup race where you have many stops, pit stops and changes, so the cars change a lot more throughout a long run, and just trying to keep up with those and making sure we don’t get out early in these Cup races where we can’t use that experience to help us for next year.”
Dillon added it’s all about having a notebook going into his rookie season next year.
