Kvapil Makes Mistakes On Way To 2nd Straight O’Reilly Series Pole; Full Nu Way 225 Starting Lineup

Hey, I’ve got bad news for the rest of the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series field. Carson Kvapil, who took the pole position for Saturday night’s Nu Way 225 at World Wide Technology Raceway by a margin of more than a tenth of a second over Jesse Love, feels like he missed his marks on the qualifying run, or he could’ve potentially set a faster lap time.

“Honestly, I feel like that [qualifying] lap wasn’t amazing. You know, there’s no lap that is perfect, right? But I feel like my up-to-speed [lap] wasn’t great, and I made a few little mistakes on that lap,” Kvapil said.

I have even worse news: Kvapil loves how his car performed over the long run in Saturday’s O’Reilly Series practice session at the 1.25-mile speedway in Gateway.

“Our car is really good. I thought Lap 2 of practice, we were really good, and it carried all the way to the end of a run. So, really excited to get on track; I feel like our race trim is good,” Kvapil explained.

Obviously, results are earned, not given in NASCAR, but Kvapil has to have a lot of confidence heading into Saturday night’s race at Gateway.

The 23-year-old JR Motorsports driver secured the pole position with a lap time of 33.626 seconds (133.825 mph), and the pole marks his second consecutive pole position. Incredibly, Kvapil had earned 0 poles through his first 66 career starts in the series prior to the two-race pole-winning streak.

Jesse Love, the driver of the No. 2 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, who also flashed great speed on the long run in practice, will start from the outside of the front row, as he clocked in 0.103 seconds off the fast time set by Kvapil.

Sheldon Creed, the winner a weekend ago at Darlington, will start from the third position, while Corey Day, who signed a long-term contract extension with Hendrick Motorsports this week, will start fourth.

Justin Allgaier and Austin Hill made it a clean sweep of the top-six starting spots for O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Chase contenders, while Harrison Burton and William Sawalich were the top-two non-Chasers with the seventh and eighth qualifying positions.

Rajah Caruth and Brent Crews rounded out the top-10 qualifiers for Saturday night’s Nu Way 225 at Gateway, while Taylor Gray, the fastest driver from Saturday’s practice, will start 11th.

Official Nu Way 225 Starting Lineup