O’Reilly Series’ Taylor Gray Just Had ‘That Feeling,’ Takes Pole

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O’Reilly Series’ Taylor Gray Just Had ‘That Feeling,’ Takes PoleChristian Petersen - Getty Images

Taylor Gray said Friday at Phoenix Raceway that he had been “super-confident” in his No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Supra and figured he “had a shot” at earning the pole position for Saturday’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series GOVX 200.

And he was spot-on.

He circled the mile oval at Avondale, Arizona, in 27.535 seconds at 130.743 mph to edge reigning champion Jesse Love and his own teammate Brandon Jones for the honor.

“I get this way. I don’t know why or why I get this feeling, but every once in a while I’ll walk into the track and just have that feeling of, ‘Yeah, we're going to be really good today. We’re going to be really good this weekend.’ So I had that feeling coming here,” Gray said, “and just was super-confident in my car, especially after practice.

“I was more so just trying to expect what grip level we were going to have in qualifying and kind of where we were going to be at. That’s the first time I’ve ever qualified at nighttime, so [I was] just trying to figure out how much cooler the track temp was going to be and what kind of grip level that was to expect going into that,” he said.

Taylor Gray in qualifying.James Gilbert - Getty Images

During the qualifying lap, Gray said, “I felt really good about my chances of being really fast. I wouldn’t say I was dead-set on getting the pole before I rolled out, but when I exited out of [Turn] 2, I knew I was going to be really [quick].”

With the NASCAR feeder series sharing the track at this “Desert Double” with both not only the NASCAR Cup Series but also the NTT IndyCar Series, it could have nicknamed the event the “Tricky Triple.” With three different grades of rubber—from General Tire, Goodyear, and Firestone—on the racing surface, none of the racers in any series knew exactly what to expect—and still don’t know 100% as one of the year’s biggest value-packed days for ticket-buyers was less than 24 hours away.

Cup Series qualifying will kick off the on-track action at noon EST Saturday. The IndyCar Good Ranchers will begin at 1 p.m., with the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race to follow at approximately 5 p.m. The Cup Series’ Straight Talk Wireless 500 will run at 1:30 p.m. Sunday. (Sunday’s race will go on Pacific Time.)

Gray said, “This place is huge with laying down rubber. So going out late was definitely nice to have the rubber picked up and obviously a lot of pace in the track.

“I’m not too worried about the IndyCar rubber, just because we saw, I think it was maybe Jeb Burton that was really fast. He went right out in practice on IndyCar rubber and was really fast. So I honestly think that it might gain grip for us,” he said. “I’m not sure, obviously, the compound of their tire or anything like that. I’m not too knowledgeable about that, but I’m not too worried about the rubber being laid down.

IndyCar tires.Icon Sportswire - Getty Images

“It’s the same for everybody. So if it is super-loose or super-tight or really slick, we’re all going to have to deal with it—I’m just going to be the first one to find out.”

Anthony Alfredo is filling in for Alex Bowman in Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 500. But for a while, it looked like he would lead the field in this series and write an even wilder chapter of his growing career. He won’t, but he will start fourth.

Another racer pulling double duty is No. 6 qualifier William Byron, a Cup Series standout.

Byron said Phoenix Raceway is venue at which he wanted to compete in the NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series.

“I think I’ve done this in the past and kind of ran the road courses because you think that that’s going to help you and all of that. Sometimes a Cup car and an O’Reilly car are very different. So now, I feel like the O’Reilly car is fun at certain places. This was a place that before the schedule got changed up [the Cup Championship Race used to be here], I thought, ‘OK, this is an important place with the championship. And it still is, because it's still in the Chase, so I think that factored into it. But it’s just about having fun and trying to go win. You know, I like to be competitive, and I like to win. I’ll try to challenge myself this weekend, put pressure on myself to win. And hopefully we can do that.”

Richard Childress Racing’s Love, who cemented his championship in his previous visit to Phoenix raceway, just knows he has a knack for solving this oval.

Jesse Love.Jonathan Bachman - Getty Images

“I have a lot of laps here, and I’ve run different styles of cars here. ARCA… I’ve run a truck race here. I’ve run Xfinity here. I’ve run Cup on the simulator quite a bit here, helping the RCR group. So I’ve seen a lot of different things work here and it’s always changing. You can always have your baseline idea. When I show up to this racetrack, I’m thinking of X, Y, and Z. But the good part about my experience here and the way I’ve been able to compartmentalize it is that if that’s not working, I can revert back to a different technique or different line or whatever we want to call it. So I think that, quite honestly, it’s not what’s worked for me in the past year. I think what’s more important for me here is that I'm not dead set on what's worked for me in the past year,” Love said.

“I’m always focused on being very curious about what might work and what might not work,” he said. “I actually notice at tracks where I struggle more at, I'm more dead-set on one thing working. When I come to tracks like Vegas, Phoenix, tracks that I run well at, I’m much more curious and open-minded. And I’m starting to learn that about myself to kind of make all of those tracks like I am at Phoenix and Vegas.”

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