William Sawalich Wins Phoenix Xfinity Pole

Joe Gibbs Racing’s William Sawalich won the pole Saturday (Nov. 9) for the Xfinity Series Championship Race with a lap at 134.168 mph. It is his first career pole in only his third career NXS start.

Sawalich’s lap was .148 seconds faster than teammate Sheldon Creed. Stewart-Haas Racing’s Riley Herbst will start third, followed by Chandler Smith and the best of the Championship 4 contenders, Austin Hill.

Jesse Love will start sixth, followed by reigning NXS champion Cole Custer. Sam Mayer was eighth, AJ Allmendinger was ninth, while Parker Retzlaff rounded out the top 10.

Hill in fifth and Custer in seventh were the best of the Championship 4 contenders. Allmendinger, while starting inside the top 10, was unhappy with his car, complaining of a lack of grip.

It was going to be a strange session for the championship contenders regardless of what happened Saturday. During Friday’s practice session, Brennan Poole suffered an apparent transmission failure and put down fluid entering turn 1.

Justin Allgaier got in the fluid, locked up his brakes and slid into the wall. He was then hit from behind by teammate Brandon Jones. Aric Almirola, whose No. 20 is in the owners’ Championship 4, spun into Jones. Parker Kligerman, who was ahead of Allgaier on the track, was also involved.

All four drivers were forced to go to backup cars and will have to start the race from the back. Since Allgaier and Almirola are in Championship 4 cars, their teams had fully prepared backups ready to go as per special rules for this weekend. As a result, they were able to get their backups out to turn in a couple of laps before practice ended.

That said, Allgaier and Almirola chose not to run their qualifying laps at full speed. They ended up 37th and 38th, respectively, in the starting lineup.

Kligerman and Jones, on the other hand, were not allowed to pull out fully-prepared backups and had to follow the regular rules. As a result, it was an all hands on deck situation to get Jones’ car prepared in time. Jones posted the 33rd fastest speed while Kligerman wound up 31st quick.

The Xfinity Series Championship Race is scheduled to go green at 7:47 p.m. ET Saturday night. Coverage will start at 7 p.m. ET with NASCAR Countdown Live on The CW.