Alex Tagliani Wins Truck Series Pole at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park

Alex Tagliani won the Keystone Light Pole Award and set a new track qualifying record at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park with a lap of 80.558 seconds at 109.889 mph. As he leads the field to green in Sunday’s Chevrolet Silverado 250 race, he will also be making his debut in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.

Tagliani competes in the Canadian Tire Series and has one previous start in the series at this track in 2008 where he finished in fifth place. He also competes in IndyCar.

After qualifying he talked about his preparation for qualifying and racing this weekend.

“We went out, the truck was fast from the get go,” he said. “We had just one little glitch we had to fix, we had some fuel pressure issues. Basically it took about 25 minutes to fix that and then we went and ran and made sure that everything was good. We parked it before the session was over, the guys were happy enough. We used the second practice getting ready for the race tomorrow.”

Tagliani also spoke about being part of the Brad Keselowski Racing team saying, “I feel really honored to be here and drive his truck.”

NASCAR Next driver Gray Gaulding will start beside him on the outside pole. Erik Jones will begin the race in the third position followed by German Quiroga Jr. and Cole Custer to round out the top five.

Several drivers had difficulties keeping their trucks on the track including third place finisher Jones who went off track during qualifying. Joey Coulter, who drove his No. 21 into the tire barriers, qualified in the 15th position. Ryan Blaney, who will start 14th, got sideways and Matt Crafton had similar issues but will begin the race in eighth place.

Series’ point leader Johnny Sauter will start the race from the 11^th position.

The Chevrolet Silverado 250 is scheduled for Sunday at 1:30 p.m. ET, with television coverage on FOX Sports 1.

Complete Starting Lineup: