Race Weekend Central

Alex Tagliani on Pole for the 2015 Nationwide Children’s Hospital 200 at Mid-Ohio

It seems that if you want to win on a road course in the Xfinity Series, you are going to have to go through Team Penske to do it. They have four of the past seven road-course events in the series, and will try to make it five out of eight on Saturday afternoon. The team will have a very good chance of doing just that with Alex Tagliani, who will start on the pole at Mid-Ohio.

Tagliani ran a time of 84.626 seconds (96.056 mph) around the 2.258-mile track. The time was nearly a second faster than the field for a while in the final round. The pole is Tagliani’s third career pole in seven career starts.

Alongside the No. 22 on the front row is the defending race winner Chris Buescher. Buescher could only come within two tenths of Tagliani in the final 10-minute round (84.873 seconds). Buescher comes into the race as the points leader and finished third at Watkins Glen a week ago.

Ty Dillon and Chase Elliott come into the race tied for second place in points. Dillon will start second (84.968) and Elliott will start sixth (85.300). The two will be separated by Boris Said and Brian Scott who will start fourth and fifth, respectively.

Regan Smith, carrying the title sponsor of the race aboard his No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet, will start from the seventh position. His teammate Ben Rhodes will start beside him on the eighth row.

Daniel Suarez qualified ninth, followed by Elliott Sadler, Darrell Wallace Jr. and Brendan Gaughan completing the top 12.

The Nationwide Children’s Hospital 200 can be seen at 3:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN.

2015 NATIONWIDE CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL 200 QUALIFYING SPEEDS

About the author

Sign up for the Frontstretch Newsletter

A daily email update (Monday through Friday) providing racing news, commentary, features, and information from Frontstretch.com
We hate spam. Your email address will not be sold or shared with anyone else.

Share via