Nashville Xfinity starting lineup: Cole Custer claims pole

LEBANON, Tenn. — Cole Custer will lead the starting lineup to the green flag in Saturday’s Xfinity Series race at Nashville Speedway.

Custer won his third pole of the season with a lap of 157.020 mph around the 1.33-mile concrete track.

Rookie Chandler Smith (156.302 mph) will start second. He’s followed by rookie Sammy Smith (156.083), Ty Gibbs (155.692) and Riley Herbst (155.652). Herbst has a new crew chief this weekend after a change at Stewart-Haas Racing earlier this week.

Carson Hocevear, Friday night’s Truck winner at Nashville, qualified eighth. Kyle Sieg qualified a career-best ninth. Sage Karam, Chad Finchum and Dawson Cram failed to qualfiy.

There have been 11 different winners in the last 11 Xfinity races.

The green flag is scheduled to wave at 3:49 p.m. ET Saturday on USA Network.

LEBANON, Tenn. — Ross Chastain scored his first career Cup pole and the first pole for Trackhouse Racing on Saturday at Nashville Superspeedway.

Chastain won the pole with a lap of 160.687 mph.

Chastain’s Trackhouse Racing teammate Daniel Suarez saw his hopes to contend for the pole end when he wrecked in Turn 4 in the final round of qualifying. Chastain’s pole was assured when Bubba Wallace, the final driver in the last round, spun off Turn 4. Earlier in qualifying, Corey LaJoie also hit the wall in Turn 4. Kyle Busch spun off Turn 4 in Friday’s practice.

Tyler Reddick qualified second after a lap of 159.573 mph. He was followed by Justin Haley (159.557 mph), Joey Logano (159.515) and William Byron (159.398).

Haley’s starting spot is his career best in Cup. His previous best starting spot was sixth at the Bristol Dirt race in 2022.

Martin Truex Jr., who won at Sonoma in the most recent Cup race, qualified sixth. Chase Elliott,