An Earnhardt. A No. 3 car. A superspeedway. Larry Mac. Sound familiar?
Jeffrey Earnhardt scored his first career NASCAR Xfinity Series pole in his 136th start at Talladega Superspeedway for Saturday’s (April 23) Ag-Pro 300 with a speed of 182.56 mph in the final round of qualifying.
With a best finish of third at Charlotte Motor Speedway in 2019, Earnhardt is still looking for his first career Xfinity Series win. He’ll have Larry McReynolds on top of the pit box, who’s back as a crew chief for the first time since 2000.
Earnhardt will be joined on the front row by RCR teammate Austin Hill. Hill has thrived at the superspeedways this season, winning the Xfinity season opener at Daytona International Speedway in February as a rookie.
Ty Gibbs will start third, missing out on his fourth consecutive pole in the Xfinity Series (that would’ve tied Austin Dillon’s 2013 record for the most consecutive poles). Gibbs was fastest in the first round of qualifying, but he had to settle for third in the final round.
The fourth fastest qualifier was Sheldon Creed, giving RCR three cars in the top four. Daniel Hemric qualified fifth and his Kaulig Racing teammate Landon Cassill starts alongside him in sixth.
Ryan Vargas qualified seventh, giving him the best starting spot in his Xfinity Series career. In his first race for Big Machine Racing’s No. 48, Kaz Grala qualified eighth.
Gibbs’ Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Drew Dollar will start ninth while Ryan Sieg rounded out the top 10 in RSS Racing’s No. 38 car.
With 38 starting spots and 41 entries, three drivers failed to qualify for Saturday’s race. Those three were Natalie Decker, CJ McLaughlin, and Jesse Iwuji.
2022 Ag-Pro 300 Full Qualifying Results
The Ag-Pro 300 will take place at Talladega Superspeedway on Saturday, April 23 at 4:00 p.m. ET with TV coverage provided by FOX.
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Find Stephen on Twitter @stephen_stumpf