Corey Day Nabs O'Reilly Pole at Las Vegas Over Sheldon Creed
The starting lineup is set for Saturday night's NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series Focused Health 302 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. After 35 of the 36 cars in the field took to the track during qualifying (William Sawalich was unable to take a lap), it was Corey Day who came out on top.
The driver of the No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet turned a lap time of 29.858 seconds, which equates to a 180.856 mph average around the 1.5-mile speedway in Sin City. For Day, this marks his second career pole in NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series competition, and the qualifying effort comes in his 39th career start.
Day's fast lap was able to narrowly defeat Sheldon Creed, the series point leader who announced earlier in the day that he will move to Sam Hunt Racing in 2027. Creed, the final car to take a lap around the track in the session, clocked in just 0.019 seconds off the time set by Day.
Creed, who won at Bristol Motor Speedway a couple of weeks ago, has won two of the three races in the O'Reilly Series Chase, which has led to him vaulting to the top of the standings with six races remaining. Creed holds an 11-point advantage over Justin Allgaier heading into this weekend's race.
It was a strong qualifying session, overall for Chase contenders, as nine of the top-10 starters on Saturday night will be drivers competing for the championship.
Brandon Jones, who was second-fastest in Saturday's practice session, was third-fastest in qualifying.
Brent Crews, in fourth, was the lone non-Chase driver inside the top-10 of the qualifying results. Although, Crews is still battling for the owner's championship with the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
Taylor Gray, Rajah Caruth, Allgaier, Sam Mayer, Carson Kvapil, and Jesse Love rounded out the top-10 drivers in qualifying.
Chase contenders starting outside of the top-10 include Austin Hill (12th), Parker Retzlaff (17th), and Sammy Smith (23rd).
Official Starting Lineup: Focused Health 302
Pos | Car | Driver | Lap Time | Speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 17 | Corey Day (C) | 29.858 | 180.856 |
2 | 00 | Sheldon Creed (C) | 29.877 | 180.741 |
3 | 20 | Brandon Jones (C) | 29.918 | 180.493 |
4 | 19 | Brent Crews # | 29.934 | 180.397 |
5 | 54 | Taylor Gray (C) | 29.986 | 180.084 |
6 | 88 | Rajah Caruth (C) | 30.021 | 179.874 |
7 | 7 | Justin Allgaier (C) | 30.044 | 179.736 |
8 | 41 | Sam Mayer (C) | 30.045 | 179.730 |
9 | 1 | Carson Kvapil (C) | 30.333 | 178.024 |
10 | 2 | Jesse Love (C) | 30.386 | 177.713 |
11 | 24 | Harrison Burton | 30.426 | 177.480 |
12 | 21 | Austin Hill (C) | 30.429 | 177.462 |
13 | 48 | Patrick Staropoli # | 30.530 | 176.875 |
14 | 27 | Jeb Burton | 30.535 | 176.846 |
15 | 32 | Andrew Patterson | 30.620 | 176.355 |
16 | 44 | Brennan Poole | 30.621 | 176.350 |
17 | 99 | Parker Retzlaff (C) | 30.628 | 176.309 |
18 | 96 | Anthony Alfredo | 30.654 | 176.160 |
19 | 28 | Kyle Sieg | 30.665 | 176.097 |
20 | 39 | Ryan Sieg | 30.732 | 175.713 |
21 | 51 | Jeremy Clements | 30.740 | 175.667 |
22 | 26 | Dean Thompson | 30.845 | 175.069 |
23 | 8 | Sammy Smith (C) | 30.847 | 175.058 |
24 | 31 | Blaine Perkins | 30.848 | 175.052 |
25 | 42 | Matt DiBenedetto | 30.911 | 174.695 |
26 | 87 | Lee Pulliam | 31.017 | 174.098 |
27 | 91 | Mason Maggio | 31.158 | 173.310 |
28 | 92 | Josh Williams | 31.491 | 171.478 |
29 | 02 | Ryan Ellis | 31.536 | 171.233 |
30 | 45 | Lavar Scott # | 31.617 | 170.794 |
31 | 0 | Garrett Smithley | 31.658 | 170.573 |
32 | 53 | Blake Lothian | 31.721 | 170.234 |
33 | 55 | Joey Gase | 31.946 | 169.035 |
34 | 07 | Josh Bilicki | 32.125 | 168.093 |
35 | 47 | Dawson Cram | 32.619 | 165.548 |
36 | 18 | William Sawalich | 0.000 | 0.000 |
(C) indicates a Chase contender
# indicates a Rookie of the Year contender
Add us as a preferred source on Google
Toby Christie is the Editor-in-Chief of Racing America. He has 15 years of experience as a motorsports journalist and has been with Racing America since 2023.
Follow toby_christie