Taylor Gray Tops O’Reilly Series Practice at Gateway Over Clements

Matt Marrie | TobyChristie.com

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Taylor Gray comes into the second race of the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Chase for the Championship at World Wide Technology Raceway as the 11th seed in the 12-driver Chase field. However, on Saturday at Gateway, he turned the fastest lap in practice for Saturday night’s Nu Way 225.

The driver of the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota set a lap time of 33.958 seconds (132.517 mph), which allowed him to narrowly top Jeremy Clements, an underdog racer, for the top speed in the session by 0.002 seconds.

William Sawalich, Gray’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate who missed the Chase, was third-fastest, driving the No. 18 Toyota.

Jesse Love and Carson Kvapil, both Chase contenders, turned in the fourth and fifth fastest lap times, respectively, in the session.

Nick Sanchez, Kyle Sieg, Harrison Burton, Corey Day, and Dean Thompson rounded out the top-10 fastest drivers in the session.

Justin Allgaier, the series point leader, was only able to muster the 13th-fastest lap time in the practice session, but the fact that the weather conditions for practice will be drastically different from those during Saturday night’s race should be a reason for Allgaier fans not to panic.

Nu Way 225 Practice Results

Rank	Car	Driver	Team	Make	Lap time	Diff	Speed	Laps	Best Lap
1	54	Taylor Gray (C)	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	33.958	0.000	132.517	33	6
2	51	Jeremy Clements	Jeremy Clements Racing	Chevrolet	33.960	0.002	132.509	24	1
3	18	William Sawalich	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	33.991	0.033	132.388	35	3
4	2	Jesse Love (C)	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	34.062	0.104	132.112	37	3
5	1	Carson Kvapil (C)	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	34.081	0.123	132.038	30	5
6	87	Nick Sanchez	Peterson Racing	Chevrolet	34.137	0.179	131.822	32	2
7	28	Kyle Sieg	RSS Racing	Chevrolet	34.142	0.184	131.802	33	2
8	24	Harrison Burton	Sam Hunt Racing	Toyota	34.182	0.224	131.648	41	2
9	17	Corey Day (C)	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	34.190	0.232	131.617	40	3
10	26	Dean Thompson	Sam Hunt Racing	Toyota	34.208	0.250	131.548	36	5
11	99	Parker Retzlaff (C)	Viking Motorsports	Chevrolet	34.208	0.250	131.548	47	5
12	44	Brennan Poole	Alpha Prime Racing	Chevrolet	34.223	0.265	131.491	34	3
13	7	Justin Allgaier (C)	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	34.226	0.268	131.479	37	6
14	21	Austin Hill (C)	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	34.232	0.274	131.456	43	2
15	41	Sam Mayer (C)	Haas Factory Team	Chevrolet	34.238	0.280	131.433	18	4
16	8	Sammy Smith (C)	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	34.255	0.297	131.368	30	4
17	88	Rajah Caruth (C)	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	34.261	0.303	131.345	30	1
18	00	Sheldon Creed (C)	Haas Factory Team	Chevrolet	34.273	0.315	131.299	34	4
19	39	Ryan Sieg	RSS Racing	Chevrolet	34.287	0.329	131.245	38	9
20	27	Jeb Burton	Jordan Anderson Racing	Chevrolet	34.335	0.377	131.062	37	2
21	20	Brandon Jones (C)	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	34.371	0.413	130.924	23	1
22	96	Anthony Alfredo	Viking Motorsports	Chevrolet	34.431	0.473	130.696	46	3
23	92	Josh Williams	DGM Racing	Chevrolet	34.448	0.490	130.632	35	3
24	19	Brent Crews # (C)	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	34.449	0.491	130.628	32	6
25	31	Blaine Perkins	Jordan Anderson Racing	Chevrolet	34.465	0.507	130.567	38	2
26	48	Patrick Staropoli #	Big Machine Racing	Chevrolet	34.484	0.526	130.495	37	10
27	07	Josh Bilicki	SS-GreenLight Racing	Chevrolet	34.519	0.561	130.363	25	3
28	45	Lavar Scott #	Alpha Prime Racing	Chevrolet	34.525	0.567	130.340	39	2
29	42	Brad Perez	Young's Motorsports	Chevrolet	34.621	0.663	129.979	25	25
30	0	Myatt Snider	SS-GreenLight Racing	Chevrolet	34.629	0.671	129.949	29	2
31	91	Mason Maggio	DGM Racing	Chevrolet	34.764	0.806	129.444	36	3
32	32	Jordan Anderson	Jordan Anderson Racing	Chevrolet	34.899	0.941	128.944	34	7
33	02	Ryan Ellis	Young's Motorsports	Chevrolet	34.902	0.944	128.932	15	4
34	47	Dawson Cram	Mike Harmon Racing	Chevrolet	34.935	0.977	128.811	7	2
35	53	Austin J Hill	Joey Gase Motorsports	Chevrolet	35.176	1.218	127.928	38	3
36	55	Joey Gase	Joey Gase Motorsports	Ford	35.210	1.252	127.805	22	5

Toby Christie

Toby is the Founder of TobyChristie.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Racing America. Toby is also the co-host of The Final Lap Weekly Podcast. Additionally, he is an award-winning writer, and has followed the sport as a fan since 1993.