Jesse Love Takes Impressive O'Reilly Series Pole at Phoenix

Wow, it's hard to call a run in qualifying, a session that only contains one lap on track for each car, dominant. But Jesse Love had a dominant qualifying effort on Saturday at Phoenix Raceway. The defending series champion beat the rest of the field by nearly a quarter second and easily snagged the 11th pole position of his career.

The lap registered by Love was a 27.336-second (131.694 mph) circuit around the 1-mile oval in Avondale, AZ, which allowed him to top Brandon Jones, the driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota by a margin of 0.240 seconds.

Love, who secured the championship with a win at Phoenix Raceway last season, heads into Saturday night's Timberland PRO 200 just two points behind championship leader Sheldon Creed. With premier track position to start the race, there's a very real chance that the Richard Childress Racing driver walks out of the race in the desert as the point leader.

However, Creed and the rest of the field will have a say in that on Saturday night.

William Sawalich, in third, was the top non-Chase contender in the qualifying results, as he put in a solid effort behind the wheel of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.

Creed, driving the final races of his tenure in the No. 00 Haas Factory Team Chevrolet, will roll from the starting grid in the fourth position on Saturday night.

Taylor Gray, Rajah Caruth, Nick Sanchez, Brent Crews, Sammy Smith, and Austin Hill rounded out the top-10 qualifiers for the event at Phoenix Raceway.

Corey Day, who has won the last two NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series races, which were at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Charlotte Motor Speedway, will start from the 11th position. With his back-to-back wins, Day has clawed to within seven points of Creed, the series point leader.

Justin Allgaier, the pre-Chase favorite to win the championship and current fourth-place guy in the title fight, will start 13th.

Carson Kvapil (16th), Parker Retzlaff (18th), and Sam Mayer (35th) are the other Chase contenders who failed to secure top-10 starting spots for Saturday night's race.

Timberland PRO 200 Starting Lineup

Pos	Car	Driver
1	2	Jesse Love (C)
2	20	Brandon Jones (C)
3	18	William Sawalich
4	00	Sheldon Creed (C)
5	54	Taylor Gray (C)
6	88	Rajah Caruth (C)
7	87	Nick Sanchez (i)
8	19	Brent Crews #
9	8	Sammy Smith (C)
10	21	Austin Hill (C)
11	17	Corey Day (C)
12	39	Ryan Sieg
13	7	Justin Allgaier (C)
14	31	Blaine Perkins
15	96	Anthony Alfredo
16	1	Carson Kvapil (C)
17	26	Dean Thompson
18	99	Parker Retzlaff (C)
19	51	Jeremy Clements
20	91	Leland Honeyman (i)
21	28	Kyle Sieg
22	27	Jeb Burton
23	92	Josh Williams
24	53	Will Rodgers
25	32	Andrew Patterson
26	44	Brennan Poole
27	48	Patrick Staropoli #
28	02	Ryan Ellis
29	9	Jake Finch
30	45	Lavar Scott #
31	43	Connor Mosack (i)
32	07	Josh Bilicki
33	47	Dawson Cram
34	0	Garrett Smithley
35	41	Sam Mayer (C)
36	24	Harrison Burton
37	42	Brad Perez
38	55	Joey Gase

(C) indicates a Chase contender
# indicates a Rookie of the Year contender
(i) indicates a driver ineligible to score points

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