KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Still in the fight for the NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series owner championship with Kyle Busch Motorsports, Chandler Smith will start first during Saturday afternoon’s Clean Harbor 200 at Kansas Speedway.
Smith will bring the field to green in the No. 51 Toyota Tundra for the all-time championship-winning team in NASCAR’s third-highest division. KBM is seeking its record-extending eighth owner’s title this year.
The Jasper, Ga., young gun claimed the Kansas pole by virtue of NASCAR’s performance-based metric qualifying formula.
The NASCAR matrix factors in a driver’s lap speed ranking from the previous race, the last race finish for both driver and owner and the car’s current rank in the owner standings.
Lap speed is weighted at 15 percent, previous race finish at 25 percent for the driver and owner results and owner points position at 35 percent to calculate the final metric score.
Driver and owner playoff-eligible entries are ranked at the front of the field based on their metric scores from lowest to highest, with all non-playoff entries lined up behind the playoff cars in similar fashion.
Smith earned the top spot with a metric score of 5.2, factoring in a third-place finish from the Truck Series’ last race at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway, the sixth-fastest lap in that event and his No. 51 team’s eighth-place ranking in the current owner standings.
Ben Rhodes will join Smith on the front row Saturday, with Brett Moffitt, Sheldon Creed and Matt Crafton starting third through fifth, respectively.
Grant Enfinger, Tyler Ankrum, Austin Hill and Zane Smith fill out the remaining playoff contenders in the top-nine starting spots, with Talladega winner Raphael Lessard starting 10th.
To view the complete starting lineup and performance matrix, click here.
Saturday afternoon’s Clean Harbor 200 is slated for a 4 p.m. ET start, with live coverage on FOX, the Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.