Shane van Gisbergen has qualified 13th for tomorrow’s Raptor King of the Tough 250 at Atlanta Motor Speedway this morning.
The Kiwi was the 26th driver to hit the track in the first qualifying round, with Daytona pole-sitter Jesse Love leading on the time sheets with a 31.948.
The Kaulig Racing #97 set a 32.337 with an average speed of 171.444 mph (275.91 kph) to provisionally sit fifth, with 12 competitors still to run.
The following drivers, Cole Custer and AJ Allmendinger, bumped van Gisbergen to seventh, leaving him precariously poised with ten drivers still to run and the top ten progressing to Round 2.
Several late runners would also make the cut, pushing van Gisbergen outside of the cutoff.
Jordan Anderson suffered an engine failure on the penultimate run of the session, while Daytona winner Austin Hill went second fastest, only behind Love, to set van Gisbergen’s starting position as 13th.
Love went on to improve on his time in Round 2 to claim pole, his 31.874 just 0.042 seconds better than Hill’s 31.916.
John Hunter Nemechek starts third, next to Riley Herbst, while Parker Kligernab, Sam Mayer, Allmendinger, Ryan Truex, Justin Allgaier and Sheldon Creed round out the top ten, respectively.
Van Gisbergen starts off the seventh row alongside Sammy Smith.
Sunday’s Raptor King of the Tough 250 at Atlanta Motor Speedway begins at 11.00 am and will be shown live on ThreeNow.
