Erik Jones will start on the pole on Saturday evening at Texas Motor Speedway. Jones, driving the No. 20 GameStop Call of Duty WII Toyota, posted a 28.232, 191.272 mph in the final round of qualifying. The Michigan native earned his 14th career XFINITY Series pole as a result.
The rising star finished fourth in round one and sat atop the leaderboard in round two of qualifying. Jones goes into the 1.5-mile oval with two victories, seven top five and eight top 10 finishes through 16 races in 2017.
Cole Custer was the highest XFINITY Series regular in qualifying and will start second. Custer, driving the No. 00 Haas Automation Ford, posted a 28.406, 190.101 mph in the last five-minute round of qualifying. The young driver comes into Texas Motor Speedway looking to score his first career XFINITY Series win.
Matt Tifft will round out the top-three starters on Saturday at Texas. Tifft, a teammate to pole-sitter Erik Jones, posted a 28.428, 189.954 mph to earn the third starting spot in the O’Reilly Auto Parts 300. Tifft, like Custer, enters the night looking to score his first career win in the series.
Ryan Blaney and Elliott Sadler will round out the top-five starters.
40 cars appeared on the weekend entry list at Texas. That means there were no DNQ’s after round one of qualifying.
About Me: Brett has been following the sport of NASCAR since the beginning of the 2006 NASCAR Sprint Cup season. Since Brett was 13, he has had a passion of chasing a job in sports that not many get the opportunity of doing. He has been in the NASCAR media since the middle of the 2010 season. Since then, he has been a part of many racing podcast shows to improve his talents. He has written for racingonfuel.com and theracingwheel.com. Currently, Brett writes for motorsportsnat.com and TracksideChatter.com. You can find him on twitter @NASCAR_Brett.
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