Harrison Burton has had an incredible day so far on Saturday at Martinsville Speedway. Earlier in the afternoon, the driver of the No. 25 AM Racing Ford announced that he’ll be moving to Sam Hunt Racing to pilot the No. 24 Toyota full-time in 2026.
A couple of hours later, the driver was carrying his No. 25 Ford to his first career NASCAR Xfinity Series pole position.
Starting Lineup: IAA and Ritchie Bros. 250 at Martinsville
Burton secured the milestone pole with a 19.843-second (95.429 mph) lap time was able to narrowly defeat Carson Kvapil, a Playoff driver, by a razor-thin margin of 0.005 seconds.
Now, Burton will look to go on to snag his fifth career NASCAR Xfinity Series win. If he were to pull that off, it would perfectly cap off what has been an incredible day, overall.
While Kvapil was heartbreakingly close to a pole position, in what amounts to a pivotal race for his championship dreams, he was very pleased with the speed in his car as he felt in practice that his car was more dialed in for the long runs that are expected in Saturday’s 250-lap race.
“I knew we were good in practice, end of the run. But I didn’t think our fire off speed was the greatest. So, the qualifying is probably the biggest thing I was worried about. And as everyone knows, qualifying up front really helps out with getting Stage Points and everything right off the bat,” Kvapil said.
Aric Almirola, who swept the NASCAR Xfinity Series races at Martinsville Speedway last season and has already locked his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing team into the Owner’s Championship 4, will roll from the third position on the starting grid in Saturday’s race.
Justin Allgaier, who has also locked up his slot in the NASCAR Xfinity Series Championship 4, will start alongside on the outside of Row 2.
Sheldon Creed, who is looking for his first career win, which would advance him to the Championship 4, will begin that quest from the fifth spot.
Austin Hill, Ryan Sieg, Brenden Queen, Christian Eckes, and Parker Retzlaff rounded out the top-10 qualifiers for Saturday’s IAA and Ritchie Bros. 250 at Martinsville Speedway.
Starting Spots for the eight NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoff contenders:
Carson Kvapil (2nd), Justin Allgaier (4th), Sheldon Creed (5th), Brandon Jones (11th), Sammy Smith (15th), Jesse Love (21st), Sam Mayer (24th), and Connor Zilisch (38th).
Zilisch, who will start from the rear of the field, suffered a wheel-hop in practice earlier in the day, which caused him to spin into the outside wall, which caused damage to his No. 88 Chevrolet. Fortunately, for the driver with 10 wins on the season, his place in the Championship 4 field is set regardless of the outcome of Saturday’s race.
With 39 cars on the entry list, that meant that one driver and team would unfortunately miss the show. The driver, who will head home, is Preston Pardus, who was actually 36th-fastest in the qualifying session, but didn’t have enough owner points to top any of the drivers in the bottom seven of the qualifying results.
