Christopher Bell led the way in a Joe Gibbs Racing front row sweep for Saturday afternoon’s NASCAR Xfinity Series Sport Clips Haircuts VFW Help a Hero 200 at Darlington Raceway. The driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota GR Supra cranked out a fast lap of 29.828 seconds (164.865 mph) in Saturday morning’s qualifying session.
Bell, 29, topped teammate Sheldon Creed by 0.097 seconds. The pole-winning run marks the 13th of Bell’s NASCAR Xfinity Series career. Now, he’ll look to snag his second win of the 2024 NASCAR Xfinity Series season, and if he can pull it off, Bell will be a 19-time winner in the NASCAR Xfinity Series ranks.
RELATED: NASCAR Xfinity Series Sport Clips Haircuts VFW Help a Hero 200 Starting Lineup
The runner-up starting spot for Creed comes as the 11-time NASCAR Xfinity Series runner-up finisher continues to attempt to collect his first career win. The Alpine, California native, who will move to the Haas Factory Team in 2025, led 47 laps and finished runner-up in this event in 2022.
He’ll look to finish one spot better on Saturday afternoon.
Sam Mayer and AJ Allmendinger will line up behind Bell and Creed in the second row of Saturday’s race.
Chandler Smith, Austin Hill, Brandon Jones, Riley Herbst, Parker Retzlaff, and Parker Kligerman will round out the top 10 starters for Saturday’s race.
For Retzlaff, the solid ninth-place starting spot comes a week after he impressed in his second career NASCAR Cup Series start a weekend ago in the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona. Retzlaff gave the race-winning shove to Harrison Burton, who defeated Kyle Busch for the win, but has come under fire for using his Chevrolet to push Burton’s Ford to the win in the days since the race at Daytona.
