Dillon wins pole after odd scene

FONTANA, Calif. — Austin Dillon won the pole for the NASCAR Cup Series race at Auto Club Speedway on Friday after no drivers completed a lap in the final round of qualifying.

Dillon got the fourth pole of his career essentially by default after a bizarre scene that left fans booing the drivers.

“I have seen it in other sports, but never seen it in ours,” Clint Bowyer said. “We just got booed, and it is disappointing.”

With all 12 final-round drivers determined to go out as late as possible in a drafting group, every car idled near the front of the pit road from the start of the session until roughly 44 seconds remained. The cars had barely exited Turn 4 when time ran out, which meant none of the final laps counted.

Dillon got the pole for turning the fastest lap in the previous session in his Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet. He won each of the two rounds of qualifying in which drivers actually drove.

Kevin Harvick will start second Sunday, followed by Aric Almirola, Kyle Busch and Joey Logano.

The teams’ decision to play an elaborate game of chicken on pit road in qualifying was caused by the importance of drafting, which essentially is the only way to post the fastest lap on longer tracks this season. NASCAR’s new racing rules package minimizes the differences between the teams, which makes drafting almost the only advantage available in single laps.

The extraordinary sight of race cars not racing, followed by fans booing a lap that didn’t count, was a profound disappointment to Scott Miller, NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition.

“I saw what our fans don’t want,” Miller said. “Having the last 12 cars wait until they couldn’t get a time posted on the board and kind of making a mockery out of the qualifying is not what we expect for our fans. It’s a little bit on us in that we hoped things would go better than that . ... We have a little bit of work to do on our part to get a little bit better format.”