Talladega Qualifying Provides Career Moment For Gase

Joey Gase (left) talks with a crew member at Talladega Superspeedway. (Jacob Seelman/Race Face Digital photo)

TALLADEGA, Ala. – Friday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series qualifying session at Talladega Superspeedway was a monumental affair for longtime veteran Joey Gase and his eponymous race team.

The 32-year-old from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, earned a career-best starting spot ahead of the Ag-Pro 300, going out early in the running order but touring the 2.66-mile oval in 52.938 seconds (180.891 mph) for the fourth-best lap overall.

He’ll start on the outside of the second row Saturday afternoon, hoping to wheel the No. 53 Hoover AV Chevrolet to a maiden victory in his 294th Xfinity Series start.

It was a statement by Joey Gase Motorsports, one of the smaller teams in the garage, which operates on a fraction of the budgets of perennial powerhouses like JR Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing, and Richard Childress Racing.

But Friday also marked a major rebound for Gase’s group, which had a car destroyed a week earlier at Rockingham (N.C.) Speedway after Katherine Legge – who replaced J.J. Yeley after she failed to qualify her primary entry with another team – was crashed early on by William Sawalich.

“It’s been wild lately, for sure,” said Gase, whose team has a leased Chevrolet engine this weekend at Talladega. “It has not been an easy month, to say the least. To be able to get both cars in the show this weekend on speed is huge for us, and to qualify as well as our car did was an awesome shot in the arm.

“I thought it was going to be a good lap when I got done, but I didn’t know it was going to hold up near as well as it did,” Gase continued. “We’ve been around the top 15 before in qualifying, but obviously have never been as good as we were this time. It’s been fun so far and we’ll take it; it’ll be cool to sail off into turn one from fourth and the goal will be to keep as much track position as we can after that.”

Joey Gase in action during qualifying at Talladega Superspeedway. (Jacob Seelman/Race Face Digital photo)

In his prior 293 races, Gase had never even qualified inside the top 10, with a previous best of 15th at Daytona (Fla.) Int’l Speedway in 2023.

Had it not been for rain that forced the cancellation of Friday’s second round of qualifying, Gase would have had a chance to run for the pole during the 10-driver shootout that takes place at superspeedways.

Regardless, however, he still felt that he and his team proved they belonged in the moment – considering Gase outqualified all but the Richard Childress Racing duo of Jesse Love and Austin Hill and defending series champion Justin Allgaier of JR Motorsports.

As car after car went out, and most of them subsequently failed to best Gase’s lap, he admitted a growing sense of pride bloomed as he watched from behind pit wall.

“This whole day and moment means a lot, and the closer we got to knowing just how high we could be, it did feel good. You enjoy those times as a driver and an owner,” Gase noted. “I don’t know if we could have gone faster – and I definitely don’t think anyone would have caught the (No.) 2 (of Love), even if we’d had the second round – but right now I’m just happy.

“Hopefully we can be this happy or even more so after the race. That would be huge.”

The biggest thing Gase pointed out is that qualifying position doesn’t matter when it comes down to the nuts and bolts of success at Talladega, with the draft serving as “the great equalizer” and allowing anyone to have a shot at victory if they can survive until the closing laps.

But with a strong place to start from, Gase hopes to stay out of the chaos that has long characterized Talladega’s iconic high banks.

The good news is that he’s only crashed out once in his 13 career Talladega Xfinity Series starts.

“This place is a crapshoot, and everyone knows that,” Gase said. “I’ve been able to put together some good runs here in the past, but you have to survive to be able to do that at the end of the race.

“If we can be there at the end, I believe we’ll have a chance, and I’m excited for the opportunity.”

Broadcast coverage of Saturday’s Ag-Pro 300 is slated for 4 p.m. ET (3 p.m. CT), live on The CW, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.