MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Looking to put the disappointment of one year ago behind him, Josh Berry set the fastest time in ValleyStar Credit Union 300 qualifying on Friday night at Martinsville Speedway.
With a scorching lap of 19.927 seconds (95.027 mph) around the .526-mile Virginia paper clip, Berry – the 65th of 68 cars to turn a lap – rocketed to the top of the board.
Berry then held off the likes of Peyton Sellers, Layne Riggs and practice leader Lee Pulliam, who were the final three drivers out, to earn the top spot for Saturday’s race.
Friday night marked Berry’s first pole in the Martinsville late model stock car special, and it was a big one as well, worth $5,000 to the driver of the JR Motorsports No. 88 Chevrolet.
“Man, it’s been a lot faster ever since we started qualifying at nighttime and we were able to tape (up) the front ends,” noted Berry, whose lap set a new Martinsville track record for late model stock cars.
“The conditions were a little bit better too; maybe the coolest it’s ever been here for qualifying, but at the same time we’re all constantly making our cars better. When you add all those things together, you have some fast laps,” he added. “I’ve never gotten the pole here before, so we’ll see now what we can do with it. We had a great car last year and we’ve just tried to build from that momentum. We learned a lot last year as a team and I learned a lot about this place and a lot about myself.
“We really wanted to pick up where we left off last year and I feel like we’ve done that so far.”
Riggs will join Berry on the front row Saturday night, courtesy of a 19.959-second lap on his run in the No. 99 Puryear Tank Lines Ford. Riggs is another driver seeking some Martinsville redemption Saturday.
“I think we just had a really good piece,” said Riggs. “We worked hard in the shop all week. I knew the rules had changed a lot the past couple of years; that’s opened up a whole lot more horsepower ranges. The cool conditions really help everybody just stay up on top of their game and be pinpoint accurate.
“The times are really close to each other, but we were happy with our lap and we’ll move to tomorrow.”
Bobby McCarty rolls off third, followed by Sellers and Pulliam, who timed in fourth and fifth, respectively.
Dustin Rumley, Bubba Pollard, Trevor Noles, Tommy Lemons Jr. and Justin Carroll completed the top 10.
With 20 of the 68 cars in attendance locking in on their qualifying speeds, every thousandth of a second was crucial on Friday night, and it proved to be that way right at the qualifying cutoff line.
C.E. Falk III, the defending winner of the ValleyStar Credit Union 300, earned the 20th and final guaranteed spot into the 200-lap main event by .014 seconds over Matt Leicht. His time of 20.188 seconds wasn’t necessarily flashy given those ahead of him, but it was enough to get the job done.
“You’ve got to be in it to win it, and thankfully we’re in it,” Falk said after the conclusion of qualifying. “To be in the top 20 is a great accomplishment. We haven’t had the speed that I thought we would have since we got back from the test, even though we’ve put in a lot of work in the shop. It just hasn’t translated to the race track. The tires are a little bit different than what we normally run, but we’ll work through all this and see if we can’t win another grandfather clock on Saturday night.”
Among those who will have to race their way in through one of two 50-lap Last Chance Showdowns on Saturday afternoon are NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series regular Brennan Poole (22nd), former event winner Mike Looney (27th), NASCAR K&N Pro Series East young gun Colin Garrett (31st) and CARS Tour winner Brandon Pierce (42nd), among others.
To view complete qualifying results, advance to the next page.