Pastrana Earns First Nationwide Pole

Travis Pastrana has done a lot of things during his career, but on Friday he did something he has never done before.

Pastrana, wheeling the No. 60 Ford out of the Roush Fenway Racing stable, earned his first NASCAR Nationwide Series pole during qualifying for the Aaron’s 312 at Talladega Superspeedway. He circled Talladega’s massive 2.66-mile oval in 54.255 seconds at 176.500 mph.

"It feels awesome," Pastrana said after qualifying. “I worked a lot in practice with the 6 (Trevor Bayne) and the 43 (Reed Sorenson) so I think we’ve got a great team. We push really well with this car. This is the first time really getting into drafting, so drafting on pole is awesome."

The pole was the first for team co-owner Jack Roush in Nationwide competition at Talladega.

Austin Dillon put his No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet second on the starting grid. Bayne will start third, followed by Danica Patrick and Justin Allgaier. Sam Hornish Jr., Elliott Sadler, Brian Scott, Kurt Busch and Joey Coulter completed the top-10 in qualifying for Saturday’s race.

John Wes Townley originally qualified 10th, but his time was disallowed in post-qualifying tech inspection when his car was found to be too low. As a result, Townley will miss the race. Stanton Barrett was the only other drive who failed to qualify.