Austin Hill captured the Pole Award Friday evening at Talladega Superspeedway in the No. 21 Richard Childress Chevrolet with a qualifying lap of 181.629 mph and will lead the field to green for Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series Ag-Pro 300. It was his third consecutive pole at the 2.66-mile track and his fifth career pole in the series.
Hill, who has two wins this year at drafting tracks, Daytona International Speedway and Atlanta Motor Speedway, explained his strategy for these types of tracks.
“I’ve been asked this question a lot and when I was first asked it, I didn’t feel like I did anything different than others,” he said. “First and foremost, you have to have a fast car and our Richard Childress Racing Camaros are always fast when we come to a superspeedway.
“But as I have gone back and watched races to prepare, I noticed that I make a lot of the right decisions at the right time and take all the runs that I can get. Even if those runs don’t work out early in the race, I try to learn from those and not make the same mistake twice.
“Some sort of luck is involved, but if you can position yourself in the top four or five, you have a higher percentage of getting the job done. I don’t like to be one of the guys that runs in the back and then when it’s go time, try to drive through the field. I prefer to control the race all day if I can. Take all the runs and be aggressive.”
His RCR teammate, rookie Jesse Love, will start beside him on the front row after posting a 181.120 mph lap. Parker Kligerman qualified third with a lap of 180.693 mph. Custer (180.169 mph) and Sammy Smith (180.054) completed the top five qualifiers.
Ryan Truex (179.942 mph), Chandler Smith (179.861 mph), Riley Herbst (179.774 mph), Josh Williams (179.568 mph) and Sheldon Creed (178.767 mph) rounded out the top 10.
You can tune into Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series Ag-Pro 300 with race coverage beginning at 4 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
