XFINITY: Love Takes Talladega Pole in Weather-Shortened Qualifying

Josh Calloni | Racing America On SI

A week after he was disqualified from a win at Rockingham Speedway, Jesse Love scored the pole for Saturday's NASCAR Xfinity Series Ag-Pro 300 at Talladega Superspeedway.

Love turned a lap time of 52.546 seconds (182.240 mph), which was enough to top the field in the opening round in the two-round qualifying session. However, the session was brought to an end after just one round as weather descended on Talladega Superspeedway minutes after Round 1 had been completed.

The Richard Childress Racing driver looks to be out to avenge last week's disappointing post-race inspection failure.

"Absolutely, I feel like we put together a dominating performance, and I think that we want more of those," Love said. "I feel like I can kind of sense in my own demeanor that we'll be satisfied if we can get more of those performances."

For the 20-year-old racer, this marks his seventh career pole position in NASCAR Xfinity Series competition, and it comes in just his 44th start.

"Just looking forward to a strong day tomorrow," Love explained. "I have plenty of poles now. The team has plenty of poles. And obviously, I think it's a testament to RCR and ECR, CT Springs, the whole fab shop and body shop. They're doing a really good job, and outworking everybody in the field."

For Richard Childress Racing, it'll be a clean sweep of the front row as Austin Hill clocked in with a 52.734 second lap time, 0.188 seconds off of the top time set by his teammate.

Justin Allgaier, the defending NASCAR Xfinity Series champion, will start Saturday's race from the third position, and he'll be joined by Joey Gase, an underdog racer, in the second row.

Gase turned heads with a lap time, which was good enough to secure the fourth-place starting spot, which is a career best for the Iowa native. Prior to Friday, the career best qualifying result for Gase was a 14th-place starting spot acheived at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 2020.

Jeb Burton, Taylor Gray, Josh Williams, Daniel Dye, Ryan Ellis, and Jeremy Clements rounded out the top-10 qualifiers in Friday's qualifying session at the 2.66-mile superspeedway.

Katherine Legge, who failed to make last weekend's race at Rockingham Speedway in the No. 32 Jordan Anderson Racing entry before moving to the No. 53 Joey Gase Motorsports entry to gain experience, had no issue locking into the field this weekend.

Legge will roll from the 27th starting spot on the grid in Saturday's Ag-Pro 300 at Talladega.

With 41 drivers vying for 38 starting positions, three drivers and teams failed to advance into the starting lineup. The three drivers, who didn't make it into Saturday's race were Garrett Smithley, Austin Green, and Jake Garcia, who was attempting his NASCAR Xfinity Series debut.

Ag-Pro 300 Starting Lineup

Pos	Car	Driver	Team
1	2	Jesse Love	Richard Childress Racing
2	21	Austin Hill	Richard Childress Racing
3	7	Justin Allgaier	JR Motorsports
4	53	Joey Gase	Joey Gase Motorsports
5	27	Jeb Burton	Jordan Anderson Racing
6	54	Taylor Gray #	Joe Gibbs Racing
7	11	Josh Williams	Kaulig Racing
8	10	Daniel Dye #	Kaulig Racing
9	71	Ryan Ellis	DGM Racing x Jesse Iwuji Motorsports
10	51	Jeremy Clements	Jeremy Clements Racing
11	00	Sheldon Creed	Haas Factory Team
12	99	Matt DiBenedetto	Viking Motorsports
13	88	Connor Zilisch #	JR Motorsports
14	8	Sammy Smith	JR Motorsports
15	16	Christian Eckes #	Kaulig Racing
16	20	Brandon Jones	Joe Gibbs Racing
17	19	Aric Almirola	Joe Gibbs Racing
18	18	William Sawalich #	Joe Gibbs Racing
19	42	Anthony Alfredo	Young's Motorsports
20	1	Carson Kvapil #	JR Motorsports
21	70	Leland Honeyman	Cope Family Racing
22	26	Dean Thompson #	Sam Hunt Racing
23	48	Nick Sanchez #	Big Machine Racing
24	5	Kris Wright	Our Motorsports
25	35	Greg Van Alst	Joey Gase Motorsports
26	28	Kyle Sieg	RSS Racing
27	32	Katherine Legge	Jordan Anderson Racing
28	07	Patrick Emerling	SS-GreenLight Racing
29	25	Harrison Burton	AM Racing
30	24	Jeffrey Earnhardt	Sam Hunt Racing
31	31	Blaine Perkins	Jordan Anderson Racing
32	66	Mason Maggio	MBM Motorsports
33	4	Parker Retzlaff	Alpha Prime Racing
34	41	Sam Mayer	Haas Factory Team
35	39	Ryan Sieg	RSS Racing
36	91	Jesse Iwuji	DGM Racing x Jesse Iwuji Motorsports
37	44	Brennan Poole	Alpha Prime Racing
38	45	Caesar Bacarella	Alpha Prime Racing
DNQ	14	Garrett Smithley	SS-GreenLight Racing
DNQ	87	Austin Green	Jordan Anderson Racing
DNQ	29	Jake Garcia (i)	RSS Racing

# indicates Rookie of the Year contender
(i) indicates driver ineligible to score NASCAR Xfinity Series points