Connor Zilisch has won the pole for the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Portland International Raceway, going 96.648 mph in qualifying.
It’s Zilisch’s sixth pole of the season and seventh of his Xfinity career. He’ll look to win his third straight race after Parker Kligerman took the checkered flag at Daytona International Speedway last weekend. (Kligerman stepped in the car during the first caution, and since he didn’t start the race, he wasn’t officially credited with the win.)
It’s an all-JR Motorsports front row, as Justin Allgaier slots in second next to Zilisch.
Austin Hill starts third, Friday’s ARCA Menards Series West winner William Sawalich is fourth and Sam Mayer rounds out the top five.
Alon Day, Nick Sanchez, Sammy Smith, Carson Kvapil and Jesse Love take starting positions six through 10, respectively.
It was quite an eventful session, as the red flag came out in the first three minutes of group A for Thomas Annunziata‘s car stopped on the course. Around the same time, Jack Perkins slid in what was a troublesome area in practice, between turns 10, 11 and 12.
Annunziata’s team had to change a transmission in his car.
Taylor Gray‘s car also had some issues with the fuel, with the team looking under the hood after practice. Gray was able to get on track with about five minutes left in his group.
Will Brown‘s No. 11 team worked on a mechanical problem underneath the car in the garage area and will join Annunziata in the back of the field.
Since there were 37 cars entered, all made the field.
Xfinity Qualifying Results at Portland
The Pacific Office Automation 147 will air at 7:30 p.m. ET on The CW.
Joy joined Frontstretch in 2019 as a NASCAR DraftKings writer, expanding to news and iRacing coverage in 2020. She's currently an assistant editor and involved with photos, social media and news editing. A California native, Joy was raised watching motorsports and started watching NASCAR extensively in 2001. She earned her B.A. degree in Liberal Studies at California State University Bakersfield in 2010.