Youth Movement: 16-Year-Old McKee Sets Record with Truck Pole

Tristan McKee, 16, became the youngest pole winner in the history of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series on Friday at Martinsville Speedway.

Tristan McKee, a 16-year-old racer, claimed the pole position for Friday's Black's Tire 200 at Martinsville Speedway. | Aaron Giffin | Racing America On SI

Judging strictly off of his qualifying effort on Friday at Martinsville Speedway, it would be hard to convince anyone that Tristan McKee is only 16 years, 2 months, and 27 days old. However, the Spire Motorsports developmental driver, who set the fastest time in pole qualifying on Friday afternoon at the 0.526-mile short track known as the paper clip, is indeed that young. And by taking the pole for the Black's Tire 200, he became the youngest pole winner in NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series history.

Cole Custer (16 years, 4 months, and 22 days old) was the previous youngest pole sitter in NASCAR Truck Series history.

McKee, who turned a 19.549-second (96.864 mph) lap around the track to claim his first Truck Series pole award, feels like he could have bettered his time on his second lap of qualifying had it not been for an error late in the lap.

"Yeah, it was a really good lap. Unfortunately, the second lap I thought was going to be even better, and I kind of messed up [Turns] 3 and 4," McKee stated. "But the truck was really, really fast, Thanks to all of the 77 group. Everyone at Zeigler. Shoutout to the guys; they brought a really fast truck."

McKee, who cut his teeth racing at short tracks on the East Coast, is in his element at Martinsville Speedway, where he also claimed a pole position in a regional short track event this week. McKee hopes everything can go well in Friday night's race, and if the cards fall his way, maybe he'll be in contention to win the race.

"We've just got to go execute on pit road and on the track later tonight, but I'm really looking forward to it. Martinsville is one of my favorite tracks. So, it's really cool to win the pole here. I won the pole in the Late Model race here the other day. So, hopefully, we can get the win here later."

Layne Riggs, the second-place driver in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship standings with just two races remaining, narrowly missed the pole position by a margin of 0.018 seconds. Riggs will start alongside McKee on the front row.

Chandler Smith, Riggs' Front Row Motorsports teammate, just missed out on a front row starting spot, as he qualified third-fastest in the No. 38 Ford F-150.

Ben Rhodes nailed down the fourth starting position for Friday night's race, while Kaden Honeycutt will start fifth.

Honeycutt will look to keep his 43-point advantage over Riggs intact throughout Friday's 200-lap event at Martinsville Speedway.

Ty Majeski, Christian Eckes, Sammy Smith, Tyler Ankrum, and Tanner Gray rounded out the top-10 starters for Friday night's Black's Tire 200.