LONG POND, Pa. — Brandon Jones won the pole for Saturday afternoon’s MillerTech Battery 250 NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Pocono Raceway.
Jones drove his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota to a lap of 54.686 seconds at 164.576 mph on the 2.5-mile triangular-shaped track.
It was the 200th pole for Toyota in the series since Dave Blaney earned the first for the manufacturer in 2007.
“We’ve been chasing that 200th pole for Toyota as a company for a while now,” Jones said. “Thanks to Ortho and thanks to Menards for being involved this weekend. A couple of people came by and said I’m picking you for the pole. It was pretty interesting. Justin’s (Allgaier) lap was looking pretty good. We just must have had a really good tunnel turn. It’s interesting at this race track. It’s so hard to judge how good the lap is going to be.
“We all predicted the track to be a little bit different than it was in practice. It took us for a little bit of a spin, I think. It was a lot slower than we predicted, so it was hard to adjust for, but all-in-all a really nice to get us here. Track position is big, so excited to be controlling the race. Hopefully we can get out here and control the race and get this first stage.”
It was Jones’ first pole of the season and the 15th of his career.
Taylor Gray will start second in JGR Toyota, while JR Motorsports Chevrolet drivers William Byron, Justin Allgaier, Sammy Smith and Carson Kvapil will start third through sixth.
