Maxson Charges to First Series Pole at Mid-Ohio

Tyler Maxson has claimed pole position aboard the No. 74 Ford Mustang Dark Horse R in the first-ever Mustang Challenge qualifying session to lock out the front row for Robert Noaker Racing at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on Saturday.

Maxson’s early 1:30.383 benchmark lap time proved unbeatable, despite a charge from practice pace-setter Robert Noaker in the No. 13 RNR machine, who finished qualifying a mere 0.109 seconds off his teammate’s time.

The duo will lead the 27-car field to green in Race 1, with there results from there series’ inaugural contest setting the grid order for Sunday’s Race 2.

Precision Performance Motorsports’ Brandon Gdovic qualified third quickest aboard the No. 46 Mustang.

Sam Paley’s No. 26 Southern Paley Motorsports machine and the No. 82 McCumbee McAleer Racing entry of Nate Cicero set the session’s fourth and fifth fastest times, respectively.

All five Dark Horse class competitors were covered by less than half of a second at the top of the time sheets.

The Dark Horse Legends class saw Zachry Lee claim pole for McCumbee McAleer Racing, just 0.017 seconds up on Alex Bachoura.

A late entry from Automatic Racing sees the team add a second car bearing the No. 9 for Mike Stillwagon, who qualified an impressive fifth in class despite not turning any laps in his Dark Horse R at Mid-Ohio until qualifying.

Qualifying ran incident-free.

Race 1 goes green later this afternoon at 2:20 p.m. EDT with live coverage on Peacock and IMSA.tv.

RESULTS: Qualifying