By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service
PHOENIX, Ariz. – Taylor Gray claimed his first pole position of the 2026 NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series season Friday night at Phoenix Raceway – posting a lap of 130.743 around the famous desert mile.
Gray’s No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota will start on the front row alongside reigning series champion Jesse Love’s No. 2 Richard Childress Racing’s Chevrolet in the GOVX 200 (7:30 p.m. ET on CW, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Gray set the fast time midway through the session and had to wait out the contenders. Love turned in a good lap, missing pole speed by only .102 mph. His RCR teammate and the current championship leader Austin Hill was the last to turn a qualifying lap and ended up only 13th fastest.
“I was a little nervous, thought my buddy Jesse [Love] had me,” said a smiling 20-year-old Gray, who now has four career poles in the series.
“I knew we had a shot,” Gray said later. “Every once in a while I get this feeling we’re going to be pretty good and I did today. Was super confident especially after practice.”
Gray’s JGR teammate Brandon Jones was third fastest in the No. 20 Toyota, followed by Anthony Alfredo in the Viking Motorsports No. 86 Chevrolet – his best start since a third-place qualifying effort at Talladega in April 2024.
Two-time DAYTONA 500 champion William Byron will roll off sixth. He’s driving the No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet this weekend in the first of three scheduled NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series starts. He’s a former winner in the NASCAR Cup Series at Phoenix.
Jeb Burton and Hill paced the hour-practice just before qualifying.
CHASING REDDICK
Tyler Reddick’s unprecedented start to the 2026 season is not only a strong competitive message to the NASCAR Cup Series garage but something the other drivers also genuinely acknowledge as special. While there is much admiration for Reddick’s historical three-peat – victories in the DAYTONA 500, at Atlanta’s EchoPark Speedway and last week at the Circuit of The Americas road course – it also naturally creates huge motivation for those he’s racing against.
They give him props for his work, but remind, we’re only three races into a 36-race schedule.
“It’s early still,” three-time series champion Joey Logano said of Reddick’s No. 45 23XI Racing team. “But what they’ve done is impressive. It’s not surprising. I think Tyler is a really good driver and I’ve always thought that.
“I think by the time we get back from Vegas we’ll have a pretty good idea of strengths and weaknesses of where the teams are at. I don’t think we have the full report card yet,” he added. “Eventually when you average it out over the first 10 to 15 races I think things clear out quite a bit.”
Logano’s Team Penske teammate Ryan Blaney agreed that as good as Reddick has been, it’s just too early to hand him the big trophy quite yet. Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 500 (3:30 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at the Phoenix one-miler is followed by a race at Las Vegas, the first of the many 1.5-milers the series races on. After that looms the unique 1.366-mile Darlington (S.C.) Raceway and the half-mile Martinsville, Va. short track.
“The least surprising victory was last weekend,” Blaney said of Reddick. “He’s always run good at COTA, so that was not a surprise. Daytona, I saw him as a pretty decent drafter but not the guy leading a bunch of laps. He’s set himself up to race ahead of everybody three races in, that’s pretty impressive.”
“I think we’re close,” he added. “They’ve been doing an amazing job. You can’t take anything away from that group. But the competitor in me is like, dang, they’re kicking our butt every week, but the same competitor in me says, ‘you have to respect what they’re doing and the run they’ve been on.’ But I think we’re close and I look forward to this weekend.”
ALFREDO SUBBING FOR BOWMAN IN THE HENDRICK NO. 48
Anthony Alfredo, 26, will be making his first NASCAR Cup Series start of the season, filling in for Hendrick Motorsports’ Alex Bowman in the No. 48 Chevrolet. After becoming ill mid-race last week at the Circuit of The Americas road course Bowman was replaced in the car by Myatt Snider
The team announced this week that Bowman was still suffering from vertigo symptoms and have named Alfredo to steer the No. 48. In his fourth year as the Hendrick team’s fulltime simulator driver, Alfredo has considerable laps around the Phoenix one-miler since it has served as the championship race the last six years.
Alfredo, who races fulltime in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series wasn’t at COTA to relieve Bowman last week having raced in Saturday’s NOAPS race and having already flown home – not anticipating a problem for Bowman mid-race.
“I would say all the laps I’ve run definitely make me more confident in where I need to be behind the wheel but racing’s totally different,” Alfredo conceded, noting he has a pretty good basis of what to expect at Phoenix with not only the simulator work but the eight races he’s run in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series races here. He suffered a pair of DNFs in two 2021 NASCAR Cup Series starts at the desert miler.
“I would say every week, just out of my due diligence, I try to be prepared aside from being comfortable on the sim; just watching the races, kind of studying what happens,” he continued. “You just never know when that opportunity might come. So, I think being prepared every week is something I do. And that way, when this opportunity did arise, it didn’t feel like it was totally sprung on me and I was not prepared. But certainly when I did find out, they gave me a lot of things to look over and study and give me the tools I need to prepare.
“But working with the best people in the sport also makes that transition more seamless, right? I think they all know what they expect of me and I have access to more resources than I probably ever had. So, I’m certainly excited about utilizing those.”
LOVE-ING PHOENIX
Jesse Love surprisingly insisted that his drive inside the Phoenix Raceway for Friday’s opening practice and NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series qualifying session did not evoke any special emotions – despite the fact that the last time the driver of the Richard Childress Racing No. 2 Chevrolet was at the track he was celebrating the series 2025 championship.
“It’s been a great race track for me and I love Phoenix for that reason, so I enjoy coming here, but the nostalgic feeling that you’d picture if I was in a movie walking in through the tunnel isn’t necessarily real for me,” said Love.
“I feel like I try to disassociate with that stuff when I come here,” he continued. “I think it’s really important to kind of reset yourself and start from kind of ground zero, right? The past might not work for me this weekend, right? So, I have to come in with a very serious and open mind to continue to have, you know, good results here.”
The 21-year-old Californian Love comes to the track boasting a phenomenal record even beyond his title work last November. He holds the longest top-10 streak (four) at Phoenix among the series regulars with an impressive average finish of 4.5. This season he is the only driver to earn top-10 finishes in the opening three races.
NASCAR-INDYCAR DOUBLEHEADER TWICE AS GOOD
Both te IndyCar drivers and NASCAR drivers were excited for the Phoenix doubleheader racing weekend and for many of NASCAR’s best, it’s a rare opportunity to watch the open-wheelers in person. The NTT IndyCar Series races Saturday at 2 p.m. ET just before the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series.
Former NASCAR Cup Series champion Blaney, whose 60th Anniversary Team Penske organization fields three cars in both series, was particularly excited to watch an IndyCar Series race in person – something he said he’s only done one other time when the two series raced together on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. His teammate, fellow NASCAR champion Joey Logano said he’s never seen the open-wheelers on an oval.
“I loved it when we did the doubleheader at Indy a few years ago,” Blaney said, adding, he’d love to see the two premier series share a race weekend more often.
“I would love it. I think it’s great for the racing fan. I’ve never really understood when people say I only watch NASCAR or I only watch IndyCar, if you’re a fan of racing, you’re a fan of racing. And this brings everyone together. I think the crowd for both days will be fantastic because it is a doubleheader weekend and I’d love to see more.”
Agrees his teammate Logano, “I think it’s great for both sports. Great for IndyCar, great for NASCAR and great for the fans to see two different disciplines. I think it’s just going to grow both of them.”
