NASCAR starting lineup: A.J. Allmendinger claims pole position in qualifying for Pit Boss 250 Xfinity series race

Final update: A.J. Allmendinger finished with the fastest time in qualifying and has earned pole position for Saturday’s race.

Group B update: Ty Gibbs, Sheldon Creed, Cole Custer, Parker Kligerman, and Justin Allgaier had the five fastest times in Group B and have advanced to the final round of qualifying.

Group A update: A.J. Allmendinger, William Byron, Sammy Smith, Riley Herbst, and John Hunter Nemechek had the five fastest times in Group A and have advanced to the final round of qualifying.

NASCAR’s Xfinity Series is in Austin this weekend, running the Pit Boss 250 at the Circuit of the Americas road course. It is the first road course of the season for NASCAR and all three circuits will be running at COTA.

The Pit Boss 250 runs on Saturday and qualifying precedes it on Friday. Qualifying starts at 7 p.m. ET on FS1 and will run approximately an hour. There will be two rounds of qualifying. In the first round, the field will be split in two. Each group runs single-lap, single-car qualifying runs. The five fastest in each group advance to a second round where those ten cars run again to secure pole position and positioning in the rest of the top ten.

A.J. Allmendinger is the defending race winner and heads into qualifying as the favorite to repeat at DraftKings Sportsbook. He’s installed at +200 and is followed by William Byron (+300), Ty Gibbs (+500), Cole Custer (+800), and Austin Hill (+900).

Here is the full entry list for the Pit Boss 250 Xfinity Series race. We’ll update it with the full starting lineup as qualifying wraps on Friday.

Pit Boss 250 entry list