Starting Lineup: NASCAR Xfinity Explore the Pocono Mountains 250

Chase Elliott, who was a late announcement for Hendrick Motorsports' NASCAR Xfinity Series program for this weekend's race at Pocono Raceway, rocketed to the pole position in qualifying for the Explore the Pocono Mountains 250 on Saturday at Pocono Raceway. The driver of the No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet turned a pole-winning lap time of 54.209 seconds (166.024 mph), which was enough to top Joe Gibbs Racing driver Brandon Jones for the pole.

Jones clocked in 0.161 seconds off of the fast time set by Elliott, and will lineup alongside the driver of the No. 17 Chevrolet on the front row of Saturday's race.

A pair of NASCAR Xfinity Series Rookie of the Year contenders, Nick Sanchez and William Sawalich, will start from the third and fourth positions, while Ryan Sieg, who enters this race just outside of the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoff cutline, will start fifth on Saturday afternoon.

Justin Allgaier, the fastest driver in Saturday morning's NASCAR Xfinity Series practice session, will start from the eighth position as he was foiled by rising track temperatures throughout the qualifying session. As he went out late in the session, he didn't get as favorable track conditions as some of the other fast cars at the 2.5-mile triangular speedway.

Connor Zilisch, likewise, was the next-to-last car to go out on the track in Saturday's qualifying session and was only able to muster the ninth-best qualifying speed. However, Zilisch has shown great speed so far this weekend and should be a contender for the race win with Dale Earnhardt Jr. serving as his crew chief in place of the suspended Mardy Lindley.

This will mark the first-ever time that Earnhardt has performed as a crew chief in the NASCAR National Series.

Here is the full official starting lineup for Saturday's NASCAR Xfinity Series Explore the Pocono Mountains 250 at Pocono Raceway. Race 16 of 33.

Pos	Car	Driver	Lap time	Speed
1	17	Chase Elliott (i)	54.209	166.024
2	20	Brandon Jones	54.370	165.532
3	48	Nick Sanchez #	54.414	165.399
4	18	William Sawalich #	54.430	165.350
5	39	Ryan Sieg	54.482	165.192
6	41	Sam Mayer	54.525	165.062
7	54	Taylor Gray #	54.531	165.044
8	7	Justin Allgaier	54.584	164.883
9	88	Connor Zilisch #	54.631	164.742
10	2	Jesse Love	54.638	164.721
11	99	Matt DiBenedetto	54.728	164.450
12	00	Sheldon Creed	54.746	164.396
13	8	Sammy Smith	54.774	164.312
14	21	Austin Hill	54.865	164.039
15	16	Christian Eckes #	55.072	163.422
16	25	Harrison Burton	55.081	163.396
17	19	Justin Bonsignore	55.083	163.390
18	10	Daniel Dye #	55.112	163.304
19	44	Brennan Poole	55.120	163.280
20	27	Jeb Burton	55.125	163.265
21	51	Jeremy Clements	55.155	163.177
22	1	Carson Kvapil #	55.231	162.952
23	4	Parker Retzlaff	55.428	162.373
24	71	Ryan Ellis	55.461	162.276
25	26	Dean Thompson #	55.482	162.215
26	11	Josh Williams	55.589	161.903
27	31	Blaine Perkins	55.647	161.734
28	42	Anthony Alfredo	55.676	161.650
29	45	Mason Massey	55.862	161.111
30	5	Kris Wright	56.045	160.585
31	91	Josh Bilicki	56.151	160.282
32	14	Garrett Smithley	56.625	158.940
33	35	Carson Ware	57.203	157.334
34	74	Dawson Cram	57.541	156.410
35	07	Patrick Emerling	60.945	147.674
36	70	Leland Honeyman	100.496	89.556
37	28	Kyle Sieg	0.000	0.000
38	53	Logan Bearden	0.000	0.000

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

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