(KANSAS CITY, Kan. - October 19, 2012) - Faced with the slimmest of championship hopes on the final evening of the ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards season, Alex Bowman drove to a track qualifying record to give himself the best chance at taking other series awards.

Bowman finished his best qualifying lap on the newly-paved Kansas Speedway oval in 29.259 seconds (184.559 mph), shattering Ken Butler III's 2008 qualifying mark of 30.799 seconds. In fact, the top 18 qualifiers all beat Butler's record as the sun set over the eastern Kansas track.

"We had a really good race car," said Bowman (No. 22 Cunningham Motorsports Dodge). "We don't have very much time here, but we're going to go win this race. The 25 (Brennan Poole) and I are consistently the two fastest race cars. He takes a little longer to get going but he's really quick. I think that's going to come down to who we'll have to beat. We've just got to take care of our tires and not wad this thing up."

Bowman's Menards Pole Award presented by Ansell is his series-leading sixth of the year, twice as many as his closest competitor. That award is special on its own, but Bowman is also battling Poole for the Team Messina Rookie Challenge and the Aaron's Lap Leader Award.

Venturini Motorsports teammates Kevin Swindell and John Wes Townley qualified second and third, respectively.

Points leader Chris Buescher qualified ninth, three spots behind Frank Kimmel. Buescher leads Kimmel by 85 points for the series championship and will clinch his first title and the first championship for Roulo Brothers Racing with a top-12 finish, regardless of anything else that happens.

The full starting lineup is available here.

The 99-lap, 148.5-mile Kansas Lottery 98.9 will start at approximately 7:40 p.m. All listed times are Central.

ARCARacing.com will feature live timing and scoring coverage of all on-track activity, and SPEED will air the race live to a national audience.