19-year-old Jesse Love just has a knack for laying down a fast qualifying speed in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, scoring the pole for Saturday’s Andy’s Frozen Custard 300 at Texas Motor Speedway in his No. 2 Whelen Chevrolet Camaro for Richard Childress Racing.
For Love, the defending champion of the ARCA Menards Series, it’s the third pole position in his first eight NASCAR Xfinity Series events, with the other two coming back-to-back at the beginning of the season at Daytona and Atlanta.
In Friday’s single-vehicle qualifying session, Love posted a time of 29.093 seconds (185.612mph) around the 1.5-mile facility in Fort Worth, Texas. The Menlo Park, California-native clocked in ahead of Cole Custer, the defending champion of the NASCAR Xfinity Series, who came up just short of the pole position.
Making his third start in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, Taylor Gray collected a career-best third-place starting spot driving for Joe Gibbs Racing, while his teammate Chandler Smith was fourth quickest. Riley Herbst completed the top five in qualifying.
Justin Allgaier was sixth, with Ryan Truex, AJ Allmendinger, Sammy Smith, and Sam Mayer completing the top-10. Brandon Jones, Anthony Alfredo, and Austin Hill all narrowly missed out on a top-10 starting spot, and will start 11th through 13th.
Other notables to qualify outside the top-10 include Sheldon Creed (15th), Corey Heim (17th), Hailie Deegan (20th), Josh Williams (22nd), Daniel Dye (24th), and Shane Van Gisbergen (33rd).
With only 38 teams on the entry list for Saturday’s 300-mile contest, there were no drivers or teams that failed to qualify for the event, with the slowest driver-team combination of David Starr in the SS-GreenLight Racing No. 14 starting the event from 38th.
Qualifying Results: NXS Andy’s Frozen Custard 300 at Texas Motor Speedway
