Shane van Gisbergen will start from a familiar position on Saturday afternoon at Sonoma Raceway — the pole. The full-time driver of the No. 97 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet in the NASCAR Cup Series turned the fastest lap of Friday’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series qualifying session, driving the No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet.
As a result, SVG will lead the field to green in the Pit Boss/FoodMaxx 250, his third consecutive NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series pole at Sonoma.
Starting Lineup: Pit Boss/FoodMaxx 250 at Sonoma
Van Gisbergen’s fast lap time was a 1 minute, 15.029-second circuit around the 1.99-mile road course in California, which allowed him to top 18-year-old rookie phenom Brent Crews by a margin of 0.189 seconds.
This pole-winning run marks the sixth of van Gisbergen’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series career, and it comes in career start No. 39.
Taylor Gray will start the race from the third position, driving the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, and behind Gray on the scoring sheet were the Viking Motorsports duo of Anthony Alfredo and Parker Retzlaff, who secured double top-five starting positions for Viking Motorsports for the second consecutive race.
Corey Day, who paced Friday’s practice session, will start from sixth, while Jesse Love, Justin Allgaier, Sam Mayer, and Austin Hill, last week’s race winner, rounded out the top-10 qualifiers.
Connor Zilisch suffered a cut tire on his No. 1 JR Motorsports Chevrolet during his opening lap of qualifying and was only able to muster the 30th-fastest qualifying speed. NASCAR would not permit the Rodney Childers-led team to change the tire for additional qualifying laps, which will force Zilisch to start from deep in the field on Saturday afternoon.
Austin Green will start from the 37th position after suffering a major crash in Friday’s practice session. In the crash, Green lost brakes heading into the hairpin turn and collided hard with the tire barriers.
Austin Green Walks Away From Terrifying Crash After Losing Brakes In Sonoma Hairpin
Green’s No. 87 team was unable to get on track for a qualifying time.
Brad Perez was also unable to take a qualifying lap behind the wheel of the No. 55 Joey Gase Motorsports machine. As a result, Perez will start shotgun on the field in the 38th position.
