Connor Zilisch won the pole for Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Rockingham Speedway, but the 18-year-old won’t be leading the field to the green flag on Saturday afternoon.
While Zilisch’s lap time of 22.630 seconds was good enough to earn the pole position, it was revealed that the right-rear tire on his No. 88 Chevrolet was flat during the run. The No. 88 team will have to change that tire before the race, forcing Zilisch to drop to the rear before the green flag.
“(The right-rear tire) went flat right off of four,” Zilisch told The CW Sports. “Frustrating. You qualify in the pole and have to start at the back.”
Zilisch will have to work his way through the field on Saturday afternoon in order to earn his second win of 2025.
Parker Retzlaff, who missed out on the pole position by one one-thousandth of a second, will lead the field to the green flag alongside Nick Sanchez.
Sanchez, Kasey Kahne and William Sawalich rounded out the top-five qualifiers, with Brandon Jones, Jesse Love, Justin Allgaier, Christian Eckes and Austin Hill completing the top-10.
Other notable qualifying efforts include Sam Mayer in 11th, Taylor Gray in 15th, Justin Bonsignore in 19th, Carson Kvapil in 25th and Harrison Burton in 29th.
Katherine Legge and Dawson Cram are the two drivers who will not race after failing to qualify inside the necessary top-32 threshold.
The North Carolina Education Lottery 250 will go green shortly after 4 p.m. ET, with coverage on The CW, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. Pre-race coverage will begin at 3 p.m. ET on The CW and at 3:30 p.m. ET on MRN. Saturday’s race is the first Xfinity Series race at Rockingham since 2004.