Austin Hill Captures First Career Xfinity Series Pole at Talladega Superspeedway

If you’re looking to capture the win in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Talladega Superspeedway, you’ll likely have to defeat Austin Hill, who won the season-opener at Daytona for Richard Childress Racing.

The Winston, Georgia-native, who led a race-high 67 laps in April’s event at Talladega, scored his first career pole position in Friday’s qualifying session at the 2.66-mile superspeedway, putting down a time of 52.605 seconds (182.036mph).

Ty Gibbs will start alongside Hill in Saturday’s 300-mile contest, after posting a lap less than two-hundredths of a second slower than the pole-winning time, good enough to barely slot into the runner-up spot.

Sheldon Creed, Hill’s teammate at Richard Childress Racing, will start directly behind the No. 21 in third, while Justin Allgaier and Brandon Jones each earned starting spots inside the top five.

Noah Gragson and Josh Berry will start in sixth and seventh, with Allmendinger behind in eighth. Parker Kligerman and Ryan Vargas completed the top-10 starts, both offering nice surprises for Big Machine Racing and JD Motorsports.

Only four teams have advanced to the final round in all three superspeedway qualifying sessions this season:

#2: @RCRracing (@sheldoncreed)
#6: @JDMotorsports01 (@RyanVargas_23)
#21: @RCRracing (@_AustinHill)
#48: @bigmchnracing (@jade48buford, @KazGrala, @pkligerman)#NASCAR

— Joseph Srigley (@joe_srigley) September 30, 2022

Daniel Hemric (12th), Sam Mayer (13th), Ryan Sieg (14th), and Riley Herbst (23rd) were the four drivers still eligible for the Xfinity Series championship that failed to advance to the final round of qualifying.

Mike Harmon, driving the No. 74 for Mike Harmon Racing, was the only driver to not take time during Friday’s single-car qualifying session at the 2.66-mile superspeedway, after failing pre-qualifying inspection multiple times.

Over the course of the week, Sam Hunt Racing (#24), Emerling-Gase Motorsports (#53), and Bassett Racing (#77) all withdrew from Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series event at Talladega, leaving only 38 cars entered in the event.