After damp track conditions postponed morning practice and forced cancelation of General Tire Pole Qualifying, Harrison Burton (No. 20 Morton Buildings/EX Imaging Toyota) sped to the fastest speed in Friday afternoon’s rescheduled and abbreviated practice session for this afternoon’s ARCA Menards Series General Tire #AnywhereIsPossible 200 at Pocono Raceway. By virtue of the fastest time in the session, 52.820 seconds/170.390 miles per hour, Burton will start from the pole in today’s race.
“It was a little different because we had the mindset that we were going to practice and then qualify, but then it turns out that we’re only going to practice but it counts as qualifying,” Burton said. “Everyone was mocked up to get the fastest lap they could so it wasn’t like a normal practice session.”
Burton, son of 19-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series winner and current NASCAR on NBC analyst Jeff Burton, won the ARCA Menards Series season opener at Daytona. His plan today is simple: lead all 200 miles and pick up his second win of the season.
“We’d like to go out and lead every lap,” he said. “That’s always the idea. It’s hard to do with pit stops and cautions, but that’s what we’re planning. If we get shuffled back on pit road we’re not going to get discouraged we’re just going to work our way back up to the front as quickly we can.”
When it comes to who he has to beat this afternoon, the answer was simple.
“Everyone,” Burton said. “Especially the Venturini Motorsports guys. Hopefully we can settle it among ourselves.”
Riley Herbst (No. 18 Monster Energy/ORCA Coolers/Terrible Herbst/Advance Auto Parts Toyota), the 2017 race winner, was second with a lap of 52.922 seconds/170.062 miles per hour. Two-time winner Michael Self (No. 25 Sinclair Lubricants Toyota) was third at 53.239 seconds/169.049 miles per hour, Hailie Deegan (No. 55 iK9 Toyota) was fourth at 53.435 seconds/168.429 miles per hour, and last week’s winner at Charlotte Ty Majeski (No. 22 Crestliner Ford) was fifth at 53.544 seconds/168.086 miles per hour.
Joe Graf, Jr. (No. 77 EAT SLEEP RACE Ford), Raphael Lessard (No. 28 FRL Express Chevrolet), Cole Glasson (No. 32 AM Technical Solutions Chevrolet), Christian Eckes (No. 15 JBL Audio Toyota), and Bret Holmes (No. 23 Holmes II Excavation/Southern States Bank Toyota) rounded out the top ten.
There were no incidents in the 30-minute session.
The General Tire #AnywhereIsPossible 200 is set to start at 5:30 pm ET and will be live on FS2 with an immediate rebroadcast in FS1 at 8:30 pm ET. ARCA for Me members can follow free live timing & scoring, live track updates, and live chat at ARCARacing.com; new users can register for free with a valid email address at ARCARacing.com/login.
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