It’s not often that someones comes to a road course race in the NASCAR Xfinity Series and outduels Austin Cindric and AJ Allmendinger in qualifying, but young rookie driver Ty Gibbs has done just that, placing his No. 81 Monster Energy Toyota Supra on the pole for Saturday’s Henry 180 at Road America.
Gibbs’ lap of 135.520 seconds | 107.352 mph was the just barely the fastest in the second round of qualifying on Saturday Morning, beating out series points leader Austin Cindric by .072 seconds. AJ Allmendinger was third, with Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Daniel Hemric and Kyle Busch rounding out the top-five.
Justin Allgaier clocked in sixth, with Kaz Grala, Jeb Burton, Jeremy Clements, Harrison Burton, jade Buford and Michael Annett rounding out the 12 drivers eligible for the second round of qualifying.
Notables outside the top-12 in qualifying included Justin Haley (13th), Brandon Brown (19th), Kevin Harvick (20th), Brandon Jones (21st), Sam Mayer (23rd), Myatt Snider (27th), Riley Herbst (34th) and Noah Gragson (36th).
Matt Jaskol (No. 66), Gray Gaulding (No. 52), Jeffrey Earnhardt (No. 0), Colby Howard (No. 15), Boris Said (No. 61), Kyle Weatherman (No. 47) and Bayley Currey (No. 74) were the seven drivers that failed to qualify for the event, all putting down lap times within five seconds of the pole speed.
The slowest driver to qualify for the race was Natalie Decker, driving the No. 23 for Our Motorsports – in collaboration with Reaume Brothers Racing — who put down a lap time of 147.342 seconds | 98.905mph, clocking in 12.675 seconds slower than polesitter Ty GIbbs.
