NASCAR Xfinity Series qualifying has been taken over by rookies for a second consecutive week.
Connor Zilisch and Carson Kvapil, rookie teammates out of the JR Motorsports stable, will be leading the field to green in Saturday’s US Marine Corps 250 at Martinsville Speedway, after topping the speed charts in Friday’s qualifying session.
Zilisch, driving the No. 88 Carolina Carports-sponsored Chevrolet for JR Motorsports, posted a quick time of 19.888 seconds (95.213mph) to secure the pole position for Saturday’s 250-lap contest from the half-mile paperclip.
STARTING LINEUP: 2025 NXS US Marine Corps 250 at Martinsville
It’s the third career Xfinity Series pole in 11 starts for Zilisch, and his fifth in NASCAR’s National Series in what will be just his 18th career start.
“Last time I was here in the Truck, I qualified 27th, so went from completely one end of the spectrum to the other,” said Zilisch. “Proud of this JR Motorsports team, we have four fast cars at the track every week and excited to have this Carolina Carports Chevrolet up front for tomorrow.”
“We were fast in practice and pretty fast in qualifying too, so hopefully we can be good when it rubbers up in the race tomorrow.”
Carson Kvapil, driver of the No. 1 Roto-Rooter Chevrolet, was just under three hundredths of a second short of his JR Motorsports teammate, and will start alongside the No. 88 in Saturday’s event.
Richard Childress Racing teammates Austin Hill and Jesse Love continued to show speed at the half-mile paperclip, as the organization has done in seasons past, and qualified third and fourth-place, while Harrison Burton and AM Racing rounded out the top-five.
Justin Allgaier, Brandon Jones, Corey Day, Daniel Dye, and Sammy Smith completed the top-10.
Other notables include Taylor Gray (11th), Ryan Sieg (13th), William Sawalich (14th), Aric Almirola (15th), Sam Mayer (16th), Sheldon Creed (18th), Christian Eckes (19th), Nick Sanchez (20th).
With 40 drivers entered for Saturday’s 250-lapper, Dawson Cram and Tyler Tomassi were the two drivers sent packing prior to the green flag, driving for Mike Harmon Racing and MBM Motorsports, respectively.
