Harrison Burton Earns First Career Truck Series Pole

By Brian Eberly, Contributing Writer

NEWTON, Iowa — Harrison Burton turned a lap at 132.850 mph in the No. 51 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota to win the Pole Award for Saturday night’s M&M’s 200 presented by Casey’s General Store at Iowa Speedway. It was the first pole of Burton’s Truck Series career in his 10th start.

Matt Crafton will join Burton on the front row in the No. 88 ThorSport Racing Ford. Noah Gragson, Todd Gilliland and Stewart Friesen rounded out the top-five in qualifying. Six of the 11 previous Truck Series races at Iowa have been won from the front row.

Crafton is seeking his first win of 2018 and the veteran driver hasn’t visited victory lane since Eldora last season. Friesen is looking for his first career win after coming so close last week at Texas.

Justin Haley, Johnny Sauter, John Hunter Nemechek, Christian Eckes, Dalton Sargeant, Ben Rhodes and David Gilliland completed the top-12.

Nemechek won last season at Iowa after starting from the fifth spot and leading just six laps en route to the victory. Crafton and Nemechek are the only previous Truck Series winners at Iowa in Saturday night’s field.

Eckes is making his NASCAR national series debut after winning the 2016 Snowball Derby followed by his first ARCA Racing Series victory earlier this season at Salem Speedway.

Three trucks failed to qualify for the 32-truck field: The No. 0 of Camden Murphy, the No. 33 of Josh Reaume and the No. 74 of Bryant Barnhill. Twenty Chevrolets, six Fords and six Toyotas comprise the field.

Fourteen drivers in the field are visiting the track dubbed “The Fastest Short Track on the Planet” for the first time in their career. Of those 14 drivers, three of them (Cory Roper, Reid Wilson and Tanner Thorson) are entering their second career race.

The race distance is 200 laps (175 miles) with Stage 1 ending on Lap 60 and Stage 2 ending on Lap 120. The race broadcast will begin on FS1 at 6:30 p.m. ET with the race scheduled for 7:00 p.m. ET. Radio coverage will be available on MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

The full starting lineup can be found here.