Austin Dillon won the pole for Sunday’s Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway with a 39.982-second/180.081 mph lap during Friday’s qualifying session. The pole was Dillon’s first in the first five races of the 2019 season but his fourth-career pole, his second at ACS.
"The cars have had speed each and every weekend, and we’ve kind of taken ourselves out of the race,” Dillon said. "This feels great, and I feel like we had the fastest car at Las Vegas also, but we weren’t able to take home a pole or win. Everyone at RCR puts in so much effort, and this is just a testament to that. A pole means a lot. It’s been a while. I think the last one was when I got one here a couple of years ago. That’s a long time between poles. It feels good to bring another back."
Dillon’s pole-winning run came in round two, even though Friday’s qualifying session was a three-round session. With drafting coming into play during qualifying, none of the 12 advancing to the final round wanted to go out on the track first, and in the resulting waiting game, all 12 waited too long for their final laps to count. NASCAR wound up setting the starting order of the top-12 by their second-round laps of record.
“Well, a lot of the cars wanted to follow us; they knew we had the car to beat,” Dillon said. "So trying to get us to go was probably a part of that. And then, when the #18 [Kyle Busch] made a little bit of a move there, I was going to follow him to have one car to beat. I didn’t have to make it back around. Then the #12 [Ryan Blaney] came through the grass. I thought he demolished his car. It looked like he left the ground over there, I don’t know what he hit, but it was pretty wild. At that point, my spotter said, ‘You can bring it around here.' I knew we had gotten the pole. God never ceases to amaze me, man. It is awesome to see the blessings that have been bestowed on me. It is special.”
Dillon was fastest in both rounds in which cars recorded laps. His eventual pole-winning lap was the only lap recorded during the qualifying session that was below the 40-second mark. His opening-round lap clocked in at 40.11 seconds/179.951 mph.
Kevin Harvick wound up second in the second round to share the front row with Dillon.
"We do the best that we can to try to put ourselves in the best position, and it was just a handful today,” Harvick said.
Harvick led three Fords into the top-five positions on the starting grid. His Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Aric Almirola was third, and Joey Logano was fifth after posting the second-fastest lap to Dillon in the first round.
“We blew it, but at least we all did,” Logano said of the failed attempts to post third-round lap times. “The answer is to go sooner, but nobody wants to be the first one out there. I don't know really what to say. We have something to talk about now I guess. I don't know what to tell you. That is the game. It is just part of it.”
Kyle Busch was the other top-five qualifier in fourth.
“Don’t hate the players; hate the game,” Busch said of the third-round debacle.
Chase Elliott was among the 12 drivers who advanced all the way to the final round, despite a spin in the opening round that resulted in a red flag. He wound up qualifying eighth.
