Miguel Paludo won the pole for tonight’s NextEra Energy Resources 250 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Daytona International Speedway, leading a Turner Motorsports sweep of the top three positions.
“Man, this is unbelievable,” said Paludo, who captured his first career pole in his 30th career Truck Series start.
Turner Motorsports teammates Nelson Piquet and James Buescher qualified second and third, respectively.
Ty Dillon was on the pole for much of the session after putting down a lap of 179.885 mph, which stood up until the Turner Motorsports trucks took to the track. Dillon ended up fourth in his Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet.
Buescher ran 180.955 mph in his Turner Chevrolet, the first truck to break the 180 mph barrier. But the next truck out was his teammate, Paludo, who ran 181.514 mph to snare the pole. Piquet went out next and slotted in behind Paludo and ahead of Buescher.
Brad Keselowski completed the top five, followed by Jason Leffler, Cale Gale, Jason White, Joey Coulter and Todd Bodine.
The race, the kickoff event to the 2012 Truck Series, will be televised live on SPEED at 7 p.m. on Friday.
Friday night’s race is the first of 22 on the 2012 Truck Series schedule.
Michael Waltrip won the race last year, but is not entered in tonight’s event.
Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100.
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