Queen Speeds To ARCA Pole At The Monster Mile

Brenden Queen with the General Tire Pole Award at Dover Motor Speedway. (Bonnie Cash/ARCA Racing photo)

DOVER, Del. – ARCA Menards Series point leader Brenden Queen hopes to expand his advantage this weekend at Dover Motor Speedway, and started on the right foot with the General Tire Pole Award for Friday evening’s General Tire 150.

Queen piloted his No. 28 BRC-Pinnacle Racing Group Chevrolet to a time of 22.770 seconds (158.103 mph) around the one-mile, high-banked concrete oval en route to the pole at the ‘Monster Mile’.

It’s Queen’s third pole of his ARCA Menards Series rookie season and his second in the last three races.

“Super excited to score my third pole of the season here at Dover,” said Queen after qualifying. “Our Pinnacle team is on a roll right now and this is just more proof of that. Hopefully, we can keep our [No.] 28 Chevy up front and have a shot at the end.

“This is such a cool place and one track I’ve had circled all year, so the goal is to bring home another [Miles the] Monster trophy for this bunch and get a little closer toward our ultimate goal of chasing a championship.”

Pinnacle won last year’s ARCA stop at Dover with now-NASCAR Xfinity Series star Connor Zilisch.

Queen, a renowned short track racer, is still trying to find that elusive first short-track win, despite Friday being his second pole on a track one mile or less in length this year.

This weekend’s Dover race is a combination event between both the national ARCA Menards Series and the regional ARCA Menards Series East fields.

Starting to the outside of Queen is 17-year-old phenom Brent Crews, who picked up a win earlier in the year at Phoenix (Ariz.) Raceway. Crews was fastest in practice, but lost out to Queen in qualifying by three one-hundredths of a second.

Crews’ lap time in qualifying was 22.805 seconds (157.860 mph) with the No. 18 JBL Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing.

Looking at the rest of the grid, row two consists of Venturini Motorsports teammates Lawless Alan and Jake Finch. Lavar Scott starts fifth alongside Camden Murphy, who is making his first career ARCA start this weekend and rolls off sixth for his debut.

Row four features Isabella Robusto and Isaac Kitzmiller, the highest qualifier among the ARCA Menards Series East regulars. Timmy Hill and rookie Andrew Patterson round out the top 10 starters.

All 24 entries for the race will start, with the No. 31 of Rick Goodale withdrawing from the weekend.

Notably, Tyler Reif had an incident in practice with the No. 23 for Sigma Performance Services which prohibited him from qualifying, so he will take the green flag from last on the grid.

Television coverage of Friday’s General Tire 150 airs live on FS1 at 5 p.m. ET, with the radio call on ARCARacing.com.