Kyle Busch will start on the pole for Saturday’s San Bernardino County 200 Camping World Truck Series race at Auto Club Speedway. Busch, who won last year’s 200-mile race at the two-mile Southern California track, posted the best qualifying lap at 41.341 seconds (174.161 m.p.h.) in his No.51 Billy Ballew Motorsports Toyota.
The pole victory was Busch’s third career in the series. He also became the first driver to win a pole and race in NASCAR’s top three divisions at the same track.
“That’s an awesome run,” Busch said. “The Miccosukee Toyota ran great. We qualified it on the pole. So we’ll take that and get into the race tomorrow and plan another strong run.”
Defending truck series champion Johnny Benson and former motocross champion Ricky Carmichael rounded out the top three, and both declared Busch the favorite before qualifying even began.
Outside of Busch’s three wins, Ryan Newman and Kevin Harvick were the only nonregulars to win a single truck race in 2008. No outsider won in 2007. Mark Martin won a series-high six races in 2006 running a partial schedule, but Busch and Clint Bowyer were the only other Cup drivers to post a single win that year.
“The last two years, they haven’t dominated as much,” Benson said.
“(Busch) is one of the few that’s somewhat put a hurt on us.”
The definition of “domination” is different for Busch, who remembers his four second-place finishes last season at least as clearly as the three wins.
“Any second place is a huge disappointment,” said Busch, who doesn’t even consider himself the favorite.
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