Chandler Smith (No. 20 Craftsman/828 Logistics Toyota) backed up his performance in practice by taking his forth General Tire Pole Award of the season for tonight’s ARCA Menards Series Fans with Benefits 150 at Iowa Speedway. Smith turned a fast lap at 24.182 seconds/130.262 mph to edge his Venturini Motorsports teammate Michael Self (No. 25 Sinclair Lubricants Toyota) by just one one-thousanth of a second. In addition to being Smith’s fourth pole of the season, it is Venturini Motorsport’s 13th pole in 14 races so far.
“To say it’s hot is an understatement,” Smith said of the ambient and track conditions at Iowa Speedway. “It’s not in the car and we’re are just slipping and sliding out there on the track. The sun will go down and the track conditions will be totally different for the race, though.”
Current series championship leader Self qualified with a lap of 24.183 seconds/130.257 mph. Combined with Christian Eckes’ lap of 24.325 seconds/129.496 miles per hour, it gives Venturini Motorsports a sweep of the top three qualifers. Corey Heim (No. 22 Speedway Children’s Charities Ford), who qualified at 24.329 seconds/129.475 miles per hour, and Ty Gibbs (No. 18 Monster Energy/ORCA Coolers/Terrible Herbst/Advance Auto Parts Toyota), who qualified at 24.403 seconds/129.082 miles per hour, rounded out the top five.
Travis Braden (No. 27 MatrixCare/Consonus Health Care/Liberty Village Ford), Carson Hocevar (No. 28 GMPartsNow.com/Scott’s/KBR Development Chevrolet), Colby Howard (No. 32 The Hope Foundation/Yurpal Chevrolet), Kaden Honeycutt (No. 38 BBD Fabrication/The Chris Kyle Frog Foundation Ford), and Gavin Harlein (No. 55 #4Presley Toyota) rounded out the top ten.
The Fans with Benefits 150 is scheduled to go green shortly after 9 pm ET/8 pm CT and will be shown live flag-to-flag on MAVTV. ARCA for Me members can access live timing & scoring at ARCARacing.com. New users can register for free with a valid email at ARCARacing.com/login.
