Fri May 16 17:03:31 2008

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Busch wins pole for truck race at Lowe's

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Concord, NC (Sports Network) - Kyle Busch captured the pole for Friday night's North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at the Lowe's Motor Speedway. The No.51 Billy Ballew Motorsports Toyota driver took the top spot with a time of 30.160 seconds (179.045 m.p.h.).

The pole victory was Busch's first of the season and second of his Craftsman Truck Series career. His other pole win was in 2006 at Texas.

Starting alongside Busch will be Ron Hornaday Jr. who posted a time of 30.525 seconds around the fast 1.5-mile tri-oval.

Jack Sprague (30.560) and Mike Skinner (30.717) will make up row two.

Busch gave up his points lead in the Craftsman Truck Series when he missed last month's race at the Kansas Speedway. But the No.51 Miccosukee Resorts driver is on top of his game and will be a favorite this week at the Lowe's Motor Speedway.

Busch has made 40 career starts in the truck series and has won eight times (25%). His win percentage is higher than Greg Biffle (19.75%), 2007 Series champion Hornaday Jr. (16.59%), Kurt Busch (16.00%) or Mike Skinner (15.09%).

"Hand it to the man (Busch); it fits his style right now," said veteran Rick Crawford. "He's on top of his game."

"Rowdy" Busch has won at least one race (Sprint Cup, Nationwide or Craftsman) for the past six weeks. And he will be a very busy man over the next 10 days. Busch is scheduled to run in five races totaling 1,034 laps and 1,551 miles.

After missing the last race, Busch fell to sixth in the standings, 130 points behind Hornaday Jr. The defending series champion owns a 61-point edge over Crawford and 71 points over Todd Bodine after his win in the O'Reilly Auto Parts 250. He leads the series in points (775), laps led (236), races led (5) and top-10 finishes (4). Hornaday Jr. had a dominate truck in Kansas, leading 136 of 167 laps, including the final 54.

The race is set to drop the green flag to at 8 p.m. (et).