As the NASCAR Xfinity Series approaches its seven-race post-season, it looks as though Brandon Jones and crew chief Jeff Meendering have figured out how to qualify up front on a consistent basis.
With an incredibly quick lap time late in Friday’s single-car qualifying session, Brandon Jones’ lap of 30.911 seconds (174.695mph) was good enough to beat teammate Ty Gibbs by three-hundredths of a second.
The qualifying triumph marks the third pole of the season for Jones, a two-time NASCAR Xfinity Series winner at Kansas Speedway, and the sixth of his eight-year career in NASCAR’s second-tier series.
Gibbs will start on the outside of the front row for Saturday’s 300-mile contest from Kansas, his 10th start inside the top-10 through 25 NASCAR Xfinity Series events this season.
After coming painfully close to his first victory last weekend at Darlington, Sheldon Creed will start Saturday’s penultimate event of the Xfinity Series regular season from third place, tying a career-high qualifying result.
AJ Allmendinger, the leader in the regular-season point standings, will start from fourth in the No. 16 for Kaulig Racing, while Noah Gragson, winner of last week’s event at Darlington, completed the top-five in qualifying.
Austin Hill and Daniel Hemric will start sixth and seventh, while a train of JR Motorsports entries will start eighth through 10th with Sam Mayer, Justin Allgaier, and Sam Mayer.
Friday’s practice and qualifying session from Kansas Speedway didn’t come without a rash of incidents, though. In practice, Stefan Parsons went for a quick spin off of turn four, not causing any significant damage to his No. 78.
In qualifying, both Kris Wright and Ryan Vargas ran into issues that resulted in damage to their entires, but the more severe of the two accidents came from Ryan Vargas, after spinning off of turn two and impacting the inside wall HARD.
Video: Ryan Vargas Crashes HARD in Xfinity Series Qualifying from Kansas Speedway
With 39 cars entered for Saturday’s Kansas Lottery 300, Akinori Ogata, driving the No. 13 Toyota Supra for MBM Motorsports failed to qualify for the event, after the two entries lower in owner points, Brennan Poole and Dillon Bassett, timed into the show.
