Parker Retzlaff, and the No. 31 Jordan Anderson Racing team, have had a really good start to the 2024 NASCAR Xfinity Series season. That good start continued Saturday morning at Richmond Raceway as the 20-year-old speedster took his first career pole with a lap time of 22.420 sec. (120.428 mph).
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Prior to this weekend, Retzlaff’s career-best start in NASCAR Xfinity Series competition was fourth, which he had achieved four times. Retzlaff, who finished 10th at Richmond in his second career start back in 2022, has been looking forward to this weekend.
“It feels great. This was a place that I’ve had circled since we started the year,” Retzlaff stated. “Last year, we didn’t practice or qualify, so I felt like we struggled a little bit more. This is where it all basically started for me two years ago. So, it’s all kind of come full circle for us to get our first pole here.”
Brandon Jones will start from the outside of the front row, as he clocked in a lap time 0.096 sec. behind the top time turned by Retzlaff. For Jones, this is the first top-10 start of the 2024 season. The JR Motorsports driver will look to snag his fourth top-10 finish of the season in the Toyota Care 250.
Cole Custer, who has been very good in qualifying this season, secured the third starting spot for Saturday afternoon’s race, and he will be joined by defending race winner Chandler Smith and Justin Allgaier inside the top-five.
Corey Heim, AJ Allmendinger, Jesse Love, Parker Kligerman, and Aric Almirola rounded out the top-10 qualifiers in the session.
Among the pleasant surprises in the session was Ryan Ellis, who drives the No. 43 Chevrolet Camaro for Alpha Prime Racing. Ellis, who admittedly isn’t a strong qualifier, notched the 22nd-place starting position with a 22.945 sec. lap.
While Ellis was a good surprise in the qualifying results, Bubba Pollard was a surprise at the bottom of the charts. Pollard, a short track racing expert, was fastest in NASCAR Xfinity Series practice (practice results here) earlier in the morning on Saturday at Richmond Raceway. However, on his qualifying run, Pollard got really loose, and he clocked the slowest time of any driver that took a qualifying lap.
Pollard, who is making his debut, will start next-to-last in 37th in the No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro.
