Kyle Weatherman Scores Second Music City 200 Pole

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — For the second time in three years, Kyle Weatherman claimed the pole for Fairgrounds Speedway Nashville’s Music City 200.

Weatherman, driver of the Mason Mitchell Motorsports No. 78 Chevrolet, posted a lap of 19.280 seconds to claim his fifth career General Tire Pole Award and his first with the Mitchell organization.

Weatherman will share the front row with Christian Eckes, who completed a lap of 19.412 seconds for Venturini Motorsports.

Dalton Sargeant, Austin Theriault, Bret Holmes, Shane Lee, Zane Smith, Gus Dean, Vinnie Miller and Mason Mingus rounded out the top-10 of the session’s standings.

For the pole-sitter, he stands as one of a very small handful of drivers that will have competed in all three of the Fairgrounds’ ARCA runnings since the turn of the millennium.

Speaking to The Fourth Turn following his pole run, Weatherman spoke about the changes in the track he’s noticed over the years.

“A little bit yeah, there’s a lot of bump and those are getting dramatically worse,” Weatherman told The Fourth Turn. “Other than that, same characteristics of the race track. Same mindset of how I’m going to run the race. It’s going to change a little bit to make it happen at the end of it.

“We’ve come close at two of them, we’ve just got to seal the deal and finish what we came here to do. Good starting spot, good deal there and hopefully we can finish it off.”

Qualifying was halted late in the session after Venturini Motorsports’s flagship No. 25 Toyota piloted by Raphael Lessard hit the wall in Turn 1.

The 15-year-old ARCA rookie exited his vehicle under his own power, however, he nor the No. 25 entry will compete in tonight’s 200-lap race.

“I’m good, I just don’t know what happened,” Lessard told The Fourth Turn. “We had a very good car in practice, our Musselman’s Applesauce car was really good, I don’t know what happened. I did the same thing I’ve been doing in practice and it just went straight to the wall.

“We’ll look at the car and see if anything broke or anything like that. We won’t race tonight, but we’re looking forward to Salem [Speedway.]”

33 cars will take the green flag for tonight’s race, the second of the ARCA Racing Series season. Live television coverage will be provided by MAVTV at 8:00 p.m CT/9:00 p.m ET.

Photo Credit: Kyle Pokrefky/The Fourth Turn

Qualifying Results for the Music City 200

1. 78 – Kyle Weatherman – 19.280
2. 15 – Christian Eckes – 19.375
3. 77 – Dalton Sargeant – 19.412
4. 52 – Austin Theriault – 19.474
5. 23 – Bret Holmes – 19.480
6. 22 – Shane Lee – 19.507
7. 55 – Zane Smith – 19.531
8. 32 – Gus Dean – 19.555
9. 8 – Vinnie Miller – 19.722
10. 33 – Mason Mingus – 19.742
11. 11 – Tony Mrakovich – 19.743
12. 28 – Sheldon Creed – 19.766
13. 51 – Chad Finley – 19.773
14. 18 – Riley Herbst – 19.776
15. 6 – Michael Lira – 19.810
16. 46 – Thad Moffitt – 20.026
17. 27 – A.J. Fike – 20.096
18. 9 – Thomas Praytor – 20.285
19. 80 – Brian Finney – 20.331
20. 04 – Scott Reeves – 20.401
21. 67 – Cody Lane – 20.435
22. 5 – Bobby Gerhart – 20.586
23. 34 – Willie Mullins – 20.983
24. 69 – Nick Higdon – 21.070
25. 2 – Eric Caudell – 21.453
26. 06 – Mark Blasingim – 21.724
27. 10 – Rick Clifton – 21.778
28. 94 – Dale Shearer – 21.921
29. 3 – Mike Senica – 22.298
30. 48 – Brad Smith – 22.408
31. 0 – Con Nicolopoulos – 23.160
32. 62 – Chris Reese – 24.355
33. 25 – Raphael Lessard – 0.000