Mike Conway scores first-career pole for Detroit Dual No. 2

Mike Conway didn’t even plan to race this weekend until a few days ago -- now he has a pole position for Sunday’s Detroit Dual No. 2 with a fast time of 1 minute, 18.098 seconds around the 2.3-mile Belle Isle street circuit just outside of Detroit, Mich.

Drivers participated in one of two groups, with five minutes of guaranteed green-flag time. Group 1 consisted of odd-numbered positions on the May 31 practice time sheet, while even-numbered positions comprised Group 2.

Conway had just signed-up to race this weekend for Dale Coyne Racing and the No. 18 Honda and now finds himself with his first-career pole just beating out fellow British driver James Jakes, who was second at 1:18.170.

That places Conway and Jakes on the front row for the second race that comprises the two-race, IndyCar doubleheader on the island-park.

“We just had to hang out and see what we had and it was enough for pole,” Conway said. “Excellent job by all the guys at the team at Dale Coyne Racing for making this happen. We couldn’t have asked for much more coming into this weekend.”

Conway will start third in Saturday’s opening race, giving him an advantage to possibly sweeping both legs of the doubleheader. Should he (or any other driver) be able to do so, he will be awarded a $50,000 “Perfect Finish” bonus presented by SONAX, a car-care product manufacturer.

Conway is a veteran of the IndyCar Series having competed sporadically over the past few seasons. He even has one previous win, at Long Beach in 2011 but departed his full-time ride in the middle of the season after deciding that he no longer wanted to race on high-speed ovals.