Ross Chastain found himself in a pretty unfamiliar position on Saturday afternoon at Dover Motor Speedway. The full-time NASCAR Cup Series competitor for Trackhouse Racing, who is driving the No. 9 Chevrolet for JR Motorsports this weekend, sat atop the scoring pylon following a qualifying session in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series.
Starting Lineup: NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series BetRivers 200 at Dover
Chastain, who has made a name for himself in the NASCAR world since toiling around in underfunded equipment in the O’Reilly Series back in the mid-2010s, has admittedly never been the best qualifier. But after scoring his second career pole in his 219th start in the O’Reilly Series, Chastain will lead the field to the green flag on Saturday afternoon in the BetRivers 200.
The driver, who likely had the truck to beat in Friday afternoon’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series ECOSAVE 200, but saw the win handed to Kyle Busch as his own bid for victory was thwarted by bad pit strategy in the final Stage, secured the pole for Saturday’s O’Reilly Series race with a lap time of 23.317 seconds, which equated to a 154.394 mph average lap speed.
Chastain was able to narrowly defeat Brandon Jones, the driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, by a margin of 0.055 seconds.
To put it in complete perspective, just how difficult qualifying has been for Chastain over his racing career, this pole marks the driver’s eighth pole position combined in his 612 career starts across all three of NASCAR’s National Series divisions.
Jones, who has enjoyed a career resurgence in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series since moving back to Joe Gibbs Racing ahead of the 2025 season after two abysmal seasons with JR Motorsports in 2023 and 2024, comes into Saturday’s race with four consecutive top-10 finishes and five top-10s in his last six starts.
Could this be where Jones, who is still looking for his first win of the season, breaks through?
Corey Day, Hendrick Motorsports’ rookie phenom, continued his impressive rookie season with a third-place showing in the qualifying session, and he will be joined in Row 2 of the starting grid of Saturday’s race by Rajah Caruth, which makes it an all-HendrickCars.com-sponsored Row 2.
Taylor Gray, who turned the fastest lap in Saturday’s practice session at Dover, will start from the fifth position as he seeks his second win of the season.
Sam Mayer, Carson Kvapil, William Sawalich, Harrison Burton, and Jesse Love rounded out the top-10 qualifiers for Saturday’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series BetRivers 200 at Dover Motor Speedway.
