Jesse Love, to the surprise of nobody, has captured the pole for Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series United Rentals 250 at Talladega Superspeedway, his third consecutive pole at the 2.66-mile venue.
The native of Menlo Park, California will be leading the field to green for Saturday afternoon’s event, driving the No. 2 Whelen Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing.
Love is one of the eight drivers that remain in the fight for the 2025 NASCAR Xfinity Series championship, and entering the second race of the semi-final playoff round, holds a 20-point advantage over the cutline.
The two-time NASCAR Xfinity Series race-winner (both of which have come on superspeedways) posted a strong lap in the final round of qualifying Saturday, clocking in at 52.605 seconds to earn his ninth career pole in the second-tier series.
STARTING LINEUP: 2025 NASCAR Xfinity Series United Rentals 250 at Talladega
“Obviously, we’ve got a couple of Welcome [North Carolina, the location of the RCR campus] cars up front, so just use that to our advantage, and our car is as fast as Xfinity Mobile, that always helps, the track position makes it a little bit easier for the first few laps, have a couple less gray hairs by the end of it,” Love said in an interview with CW Sports. “Looking forward to today, obviously, we need to get stage points, that’s priority number one, and hopefully we can either be mathematically locked in by the end of it, or win our way in. Either way, would love to take next week at Martinsville off, and just focus on Phoenix.”
A trio of NASCAR Xfinity Series rookies will line up behind Love when the green flag drops at Talladega Superspeedway, with William Sawalich, Christian Eckes, and Carson Kvapil holding down the second, third, and fourth positions.
In a little bit of a surprise, Austin Hill was unable to match the pace of his Richard Childress Racing teammate, and qualified in the fifth position. It’s the worst qualifying result for Hill on a traditional superspeedway since joining RCR at the start of 2022 — having never started off the front row at Talladega Superspeedway while driving the No. 21 Chevrolet.
Jeb Burton, who came within inches of winning the Spring event at Talladega Superspeedway, brought a fast piece to the Talladega, Alabama, racetrack, putting his No. 27 Sportsman Channel Chevrolet in sixth place. JR Motorsports teammates Connor Zilisch and Justin Allgaier were seventh and eighth, with Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Aric Almirola and Brandon Jones rounding out the top-10 in ninth and tenth.
Only Sammy Smith (11th), Sam Mayer (13th), and Sheldon Creed (16th) qualified outside the top-10 of the eight drivers in the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs, heading into Talladega.
Taylor Gray failed to post a lap time in qualifying after his No. 54 Operation 300 Toyota GR Supra suffered a transmission issue in qualifying, making it impossible for the Joe Gibbs Racing rookie to complete his lap.
The United Rentals 250 will take place on Saturday, October 18, at 4:00 PM on The CW.
