Austin Dillon shoots to the front for the AAA Texas 500

credit: Debbie Ross/Skirts and Scuffs

by Lisa Janine Cloud 

Austin Dillon earned his second pole of the season and third of his career with a blazing lap of 28.081 seconds around Texas Motor Speedway. He’ll lead the field to the green on Sunday in the AAA Texas 500.

“Man, that's huge!" Dillon said. "Great job by everybody on our Bad Boy Realtreee Chevy and everybody at Dow for supporting us and getting us this far. It is our second pole of the year, and I can't be happier for RCR and everybody back at the shop. A lot of hard work and effort goes on. We missed the Chase by just two feet. We want to prove that we can win a race by the end of this year. This is big for us.”

Possibly as important to Dillon was the gun that goes along with the Coors Light Pole Award.

“Oh man, it’s a Henry Repeating Rifle -- it is really cool,” exclaimed Dillon. “For me being an outdoorsman, [I] love shooting, and it’s probably the most special pole award that I could get as a driver. It felt like a win. That was cool. They do a really good job here at Texas of making you feel good when you accomplish something."

Joey Logano’s reaction to his second-place qualifying effort wasn’t nearly as enthusiastic. The driver of the AAA Ford was disappointed in being edged out by 0.06 seconds, giving him his sixth runner-up start of the season.

“That is really frustrating,” Logano said. “Last week we missed it by eight thousandths and this week by six thousandths. Second stings the most. It is crazy to think about how close that is when you are going 200 miles per hour. I don’t know how close that is in feet or probably inches. That is the name of the game though. That is how close the competition is. We are mad about second, and that is when you know your team is in a good spot.”

During his qualifying run, Kevin Harvick said he felt like he got older with each lap.

“Well, it’s hard because it’s really, really fast. You’ve got to be committed to the throttle in order to run a fast lap, and then you’ve got to bounce over all the bumps and be pointed in the right direction over all the bumps in order to make speed,” he explained.

“There are a lot of places to screw up. As I get older, I feel like I screw up more.”

Still, Harvick will roll off third on Sunday afternoon.

Brad Keselowski starts in fourth place and seemed less frustrated than his teammate, Logano.

“Everybody was really close there at the end," Keselowski said. "Three-hundredths for the top-four -- that is a close field. We weren’t where we wanted to be at the start, but we kept on it and kept getting better. That is a testament to Paul Wolfe and the 2 crew here, and I am very proud of that effort.”

Kyle Busch made it into the second round of qualifying, but the No. 18 M & M’s Camry began leaking water, and the team quickly pushed it to the garage. 

Crew chief Adam Stevens  gave his take on the problem. 

“I think it is a byproduct of pounding the fence before we even completed a lap in practice. In our hurry to change the motor and all the drivetrain afterwards, apparently we didn’t get the lower radiator hose completely clamped on the water neck out of the block and proceeded to dump all the water out of it on pit road after our first run. We’re going to start 24th and get after them from there.”

Chasers Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards and Kurt Busch start seventh, ninth and 10th, respectively, while Denny Hamlin and Jimmie Johnson roll off 17th and 19th.

The AAA Texas 500 starts at 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 6 and will be broadcast on NBC.

The full starting lineup:

Rank	Driver	Time	Speed
1	Austin Dillon	28.081	192.301
2	Joey Logano	28.087	192.26
3	Kevin Harvick	28.099	192.178
4	Brad Keselowski	28.106	192.13
5	Kyle Larson	28.131	191.959
6	Paul Menard	28.195	191.523
7	Matt Kenseth	28.216	191.381
8	Ryan Blaney	28.232	191.272
9	Carl Edwards	28.274	190.988
10	Kurt Busch	28.34	190.543
11	Chase Elliott	28.357	190.429
12	Martin Truex, Jr.	28.487	189.56
13	Casey Mears	28.238	191.232
14	A.J. Allmendinger	28.244	191.191
15	Jamie McMurray	28.265	191.049
16	Alex Bowman	28.288	190.894
17	Denny Hamlin	28.298	190.826
18	Ryan Newman	28.335	190.577
19	Jimmie Johnson	28.493	189.52
20	Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.	28.542	189.195
21	Aric Almirola	28.623	188.659
22	Danica Patrick	28.742	187.878
23	Tony Stewart	281.286	19.198
24	Kyle Busch		0
25	Greg Biffle	28.251	191.144
26	Trevor Bayne	28.308	190.759
27	Clint Bowyer	28.312	190.732
28	Michael McDowell	28.343	190.523
29	Brian Scott	28.372	190.328
30	Chris Buescher	28.374	190.315
31	Kasey Kahne	28.389	190.215
32	Regan Smith	28.435	189.907
33	Matt DiBenedetto	28.436	189.9
34	Landon Cassill	28.561	189.069
35	Ryan Ellis	28.648	188.495
36	David Ragan	28.778	187.643
37	Michael Annett	28.903	186.832
38	Reed Sorenson	29.316	184.2
39	Joey Gase	29.66	182.063
40	Josh Wise	29.877	180.741