Sam Mayer Rockets Past Larson For O'Reilly Series Pole at Las Vegas

Sam Mayer, the driver of the No. 41 Haas Factory Team Chevrolet Camaro, will start Saturday evening's NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series The LiUNA! at Las Vegas Motor Speedway from the pole position.

The driver clocked in an ultra-fast lap time of 29.462 seconds (183.287 mph) to top the 41 cars on the entry list in Saturday's qualifying session. The pole is the sixth of Mayer's 154-race career in the series, and it's his first-ever pole at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Mayer was able to top Kyle Larson, a two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, by 0.062 seconds to score the pole. Mayer was happy with an alliance that his team formed with Hendrick Motorsports in the offseason after a swap to Chevrolet from Ford, and said that made all the difference in their quest of the pole on Saturday at LVMS.

"Huge shoutout to the alliance cars. Having that in our corner is really good for us because we can kind of put our notes together and work together really well," Mayer explained. "So, it helped us out. Having Cole in the field helped a lot, too. Just kind of knowing what the track has, what each kind of car is fighting or not fighting."

Sheldon Creed, Mayer's teammate who took his first career win a few weeks ago at EchoPark Speedway in Atlanta, will start from the third position on Saturday afternoon, and he'll be joined in the second row of the starting grid by Sammy Smith, the driver of the No. 8 JR Motorsports Chevrolet.

Brandon Jones was the first non-Chevrolet on the qualifying scoring sheet, as he secured the fifth position with his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota GR Supra. Taylor Gray, Jesse Love, Rajah Caruth, Justin Allgaier, and Jeremy Clements rounded out the top-10 qualifiers for Saturday's The Liuna! at Las Vegas.

With 41 cars vying for 38 starting spots, three drivers were unable to advance to the starting lineup for Saturday's race. The three drivers, who failed to make the race were Myatt Snider, Chad Finchum, and Dawson Cram.

Cram's car blew an engine in Saturday's practice session, which ended his hopes of turning a qualifying lap.

The LiUNA! Official Starting Lineup

1. 41-Sam Mayer
2. 88-Kyle Larson
3. 00-Sheldon Creed
4. 8-Sammy Smith
5. 20-Brandon Jones
6. 54-Taylor Gray
7. 2-Jesse Love
8. 32-Rajah Caruth
9. 7-Justin Allgaier
10. 51-Jeremy Clements
11. 17-Corey Day
12. 99-Parker Retzlaff
13. 21-Austin Hill
14. 18-William Sawalich
15. 27-Jeb Burton
16. 0-Cole Custer
17. 1-Connor Zilisch
18. 9-Carson Kvapil
19. 87-Austin Green
20. 39-Ryan Sieg
21. 25-Nick Sanchez
22. 48-Patrick Staropoli
23. 19-Chase Briscoe
24. 24-Harrison Burton
25. 26-Dean Thompson
26. 44-Brennan Poole
27. 52-Daniel Dye
28. 5-Chandler Smith
29. 28-Kyle Sieg
30. 45-Lavar Scott
31. 96-Anthony Alfredo
32. 92-Josh Williams
33. 31-Blaine Perkins
34. 42-Nathan Byrd
35. 02-Ryan Ellis
36. 55-Joey Gase
37. 91-Mason Maggio
38. 07-Josh Bilicki
DNQ 30-Myatt Snider
DNQ 35-Chad Finchum
DNQ 74-Dawson Cram