(OREGON, Wis.) – In his return to the track where he made his ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards debut and won right away one year ago, Alex Bowman set a new ARCA qualifying record at Madison International Speedway.
Bowman will start first in tomorrow’s Herr’s Live Life with Flavor 200 after winning his fifth Menards Pole Award presented by Ansell of 2012. His lap of 18.093 seconds (99.486 mph) topped Clint King’s qualifying mark from one year ago, an event at which the 16-year-old King also made his ARCA debut.
Bowman, 19, placed the No. 22 St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Dodge in a prime position to give Cunningham Motorsports a Madison win to match the one he earned with Venturini Motorsports last year.
“We’ve been really good here all day, but haven’t really shown it on the time charts,” said Bowman, who finished the first practice eighth and the final session 11th. “We had a really good St. Jude’s/Cunningham Motorsports Dodge and I’ve got to thank (crew chief) Paul Andrews, (co-owners) Kerry Scherer, Briggs Cunningham, and Penske Engines. We had a good race car. I really didn’t expect to qualify that well. Hopefully, we’ll bring it home in the same place we did last year.”
Bowman earned 15 bonus points for qualifying first. Brennan Poole (No. 25 Venturini Motorsports Toyota) qualified second to earn 10 bonus points and draw within 85 points of points leader Chris Buescher with four races to go.
Erik Jones, a Venturini Motorsports teammate to Poole, qualified third. Chase Elliott was fourth, ahead of Chad Hackenbracht, Mason Mingus, Buescher, Tom Hessert, Frank Kimmel, and King.
Tomorrow, ARCA Racing Series drivers will appear on the frontstretch for an autograph session open to all fans at noon, and the 200-lap, 100-mile race will begin at 2 p.m. Central, one hour behind Eastern Daylight Time.
ARCARacing.com will feature live timing and scoring coverage, and ARCA Racing Network hosts Charlie Krall and Tim Clagg will deliver a live audio call of the race on the site.