QUALIFYING: Mason Diaz earns first career General Tire Pole Award at Southern National

LUCAMA, N.C. — Mason Diaz is competing at his home track Saturday. And for the first time in his career racing on the ARCA Menards platform, he will start a race from the pole.

Driving the No. 74 Solid Rock Carriers/PW Marina/Mulch Mate Toyota, Diaz won the General Tire Pole Award ahead of Saturday night’s Southern National 200 presented by Solid Rock Carriers at Southern National Motorsports Park, a venue at which his father Michael serves as the track operator.

Diaz, 21, paced the field with a lap time of 15.558 seconds / 92.557 mph to earn the pole.

Diaz enters Saturday night’s race, the fifth of eight in the ARCA Menards Series East this season, second in championship points behind Sammy Smith, who qualified sixth at Southern National.

Mason Mingus, who earned the pole for the East Series race at Tennessee’s Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway last month, qualified second at Southern National with a lap time of 15.728 seconds / 91.556 mph.

Parker Retzlaff (15.777 seconds / 91.272 mph) qualified third ahead of Rajah Caruth (15.789 seconds / 91.203 mph) in fourth and Joey Iest (15.813 seconds / 91.064 mph), who was fastest in practice earlier Saturday, in fifth.

Smith, Daniel Dye, Max Gutiérrez, Justin S. Carroll and Ross “Boo Boo” Dalton rounded out the top 10 in qualifying.

The Southern National 200 presented by Solid Rock Carriers is scheduled to start at 8 p.m. ET. The race will be shown live on NBC Sports Gold’s TrackPass.

Starting Lineup: Southern National 200 presented by Solid Rock Carriers