Dye Blisters Atlanta Pavement For First Truck Pole

Daniel Dye (left) with team owner Bill McAnally after winning the pole at Atlanta Motor Speedway. (HHP/Chris Owens photo)

HAMPTON, Ga. – One week after a rough outing at his home racetrack, Daniel Dye rocketed to his first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Cometic Gasket Pole Award during qualifying at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

With a blistering time of 31.817 seconds (174.246 mph) around the 1.54-mile, high-banked quad-oval, Dye secured his first pole in his 25th Truck Series start. It marked Dye’s second appearance at Atlanta.

The 20-year-old from DeLand, Fla., led a McAnally-Hilgemann Racing sweep of the front row, with all four of the team’s Chevrolet Silverado RSTs qualifying inside the top five.

“This is such a cool moment,” said Dye. “For this to be just my second race with MHR, it’s super exciting for everyone involved. I honestly didn’t think our [round one] lap was all that good, but we really improved there on our second run. The wind was an interesting factor [throughout qualifying], but we’re obviously really fast to be top of the board, and to have all four of our trucks up there is a huge deal.”

As the eighth of 10 drivers out in the second and final knockout round, Dye was quick to admit that there were some nerves surrounding him before he could officially celebrate the pole position with his team.

“It’s awful watching and knowing that you’ve still got two teammates left to go and both of them were fast in the first round, also,” Dye admitted. “Tyler was close, and then waiting on the [No.] 19 [Christian Eckes] to go was a little crazy, but we ended up on top and I’m super proud of the effort that got us to this point.

“The Champion Containers colors are going to look really good up front tomorrow, and hopefully we can keep it there throughout the race.”

Californian Tyler Ankrum joins Dye on the front row for Saturday’s race after a quick lap of 31.960 seconds (173.467 mph) in the final round. It’s Ankrum’s second career front-row start at Atlanta.

Ty Majeski qualified third for ThorSport Racing (31.992/173.293), with the other two MHR entries of Jack Wood (32.006/173.218) and Eckes (32.066/172.893) slotting in fourth and fifth, respectively.

Grant Enfinger timed in sixth quickest for CR7 Motorsports, just ahead of all-time Truck Series winner Kyle Busch, who will line up seventh in his first race with Spire Motorsports – the organization which purchased the assets of Kyle Busch Motorsports at the conclusion of last season.

Matt Crafton, Chase Purdy, and rookie Conner Jones closed the top 10 that made it through both rounds of knockout qualifying.

ThorSport Racing’s Jake Garcia was the first driver who failed to advance to the final knockout round, turning a lap of 32.372 seconds (171.259 mph) in the No. 13 Ford F-150.

Garcia missed the transfer to the final round of qualifying by a scant one-thousandth (.001) of a second.

Other notables starting deeper in the field at Atlanta include Rajah Caruth (12th), Stewart Friesen (16th), Ty Dillon (17th), Daytona winner Nick Sanchez (18th), Corey Heim (19th), and Kaden Honeycutt (25th).

With just 33 trucks on the property, no drivers failed to qualify for the starting grid.

The Fr8 208 is slated for a 2 p.m. ET start Saturday, live on FS1, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.