As the Championship 4 will compete for the NASCAR Xfinity Series championship Saturday afternoon at Phoenix Raceway, it’ll be an 18-year-old, William Sawalich, who leads the field to the green flag.
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The driver of the No. 19 Starkey / SoundGear Toyota GR Supra for Joe Gibbs Racing turned a lap time of 26.832 seconds (134.168 mph) in Saturday’s qualifying session to secure the pole position. It’s first pole position of the young Minnesota native’s NASCAR Xfinity Series career, and it comes in just his third career start.
Sawalich will be joined by Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Sheldon Creed on the outside of the front row. Creed clocked in a lap time 0.148 seconds off of the pace of Sawalich.
Riley Herbst will start the race from the inside of Row 2 in the third position, while Chandler Smith will start from the outside of Row 2.
Austin Hill was the highest-qualifying Championship 4 contender in fifth, and he will be joined by his Richard Childress Racing teammate Jesse Love in Row 3.
Cole Custer, another Playoff contender, will start from seventh, and he’ll be followed by Sam Mayer, Championship 4 contender AJ Allmendinger, and Parker Retzlaff inside the top-10.
Justin Allgaier, the final NASCAR Xfinity Series Championship 4 contender, will start the race from the 37th starting spot after turning a 118.965 mph lap in qualifying. Allgaier is attempting to rebound from a crash in practice on Friday, which wiped out his primary car.
Aric Almirola, who is attempting to score an owners’ championship for Joe Gibbs Racing, will start from the final position in the starting grid (38th). Almirola, like Allgaier was involved in a multi-car melee in the opening minutes of NASCAR Xfinity Series practice on Friday.
With both drivers having to drop to the rear of the field prior to Saturday’s race regardless of their qualifying effort due to going to backup cars, Allgaier and Almirola opted to turn ultra-slow qualifying laps to help them have less worn tires to start Saturday’s race.
