Gray Snags Third Xfinity Pole Of ’25 In Dover Drills

Taylor Gray in action Saturday at Dover Motor Speedway. (Wyatt Tinsley/Motorsports Hotspot photo)

DOVER, Del. – In a season where he has had incredible qualifying speed, Taylor Gray proved once again that he can hang with the best by winning the Kennametal Pole Award for the BetRivers 200 at Dover Motor Speedway.

Gray put down a blazing-fast lap time of 23.578 seconds (152.685 mph) in his No. 54 Operation 300 Toyota GR Supra, more than a tenth of a second clear of the next best car.

It’s Gray’s third pole of his rookie NASCAR Xfinity Series season, an incredible number considering the talented competition he has had to face this year.

However, despite growing up with a short-track background, Dover marked Gray’s first pole on a track a mile or less in length, with his other two coming at the intermediate ovals of Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway and Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway, respectively.

“I think just unloading off the truck, we missed some [shock] travel stuff a little bit and were really hard on the splitter. But we worked throughout practice to make our car better, and I'm super proud of all my guys for getting us to this result, at least in qualifying,” said Gray. “We’ve got a really fast Operation 300 GR Supra ... and the turnaround we had really shows the fight in this group and is a testament to them.

“The track is definitely going to change a lot for the race, even from right now,” he added. “You saw in practice that it took so much rubber and got so much darker in color, so it's definitely going to shift the balance of our cars a bit and we're going to have to stay on top of the [groove] migration and things like that in order to be in contention at the end."

Nick Sanchez, still riding the momentum from his win at Georgia’s EchoPark Speedway three races ago, will start to Gray’s outside. Sanchez piloted his No. 48 Big Machine Label Group Chevrolet to a lap time of 23.673 seconds (152.072 mph).

Yet another rookie rolls off third in Connor Zilisch, with seasoned veteran Brandon Jones to his outside, while row three consists of two NASCAR Cup Series winners, Ross Chastain and Aric Almirola.

Reigning series champion Justin Allgaier lines up alongside rookie William Sawalich in row four, and it’s cousins Jeb and Harrison Burton rounding out the top 10.

Notables starting deeper in the lineup include a quintet of series stars from 11th to 15th – Sheldon Creed, Jesse Love, Sam Mayer, Carson Kvapil, and Austin Hill – as well as solid qualifying efforts from a pair of Drive 4 Diversity alumni in Jordan Anderson Racing’s Rajah Caruth (16th) and Alpha Prime Racing’s Lavar Scott (22nd).

Defending Dover Xfinity Series winner Ryan Truex starts 32nd for Sam Hunt Racing, the last driver to make the field on qualifying speed.

With 40 entries for 38 available starting spots, the qualifying session sent two drivers home, with both Joey Gase Motorsports drivers in Glen Reen and David Starr failing to make the field.

Broadcast coverage from the ‘Monster Mile’ airs at 4:30 p.m. ET, live on The CW, the Performance Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.