Championship points leader Justin Allgaier returns to Nashville as the defending winner of Saturday night’s Sports Illustrated Resorts 250 (7:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The 2024 series champ has been so strong this season that his points lead (145 points) over second place, reigning series champion Jesse Love, is greater than the margin between Love and eighth place Carson Kvapil. And the veteran Allgaier, a two-time Nashville winner (2022 and 2025), is the only former winner in Saturday’s race.
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On the other side of the experience metric, this will mark Hendrick Motorsports’ Corey Day’s second Nashville start. The talented 20-year-old Californian earned his career-first wins at Talladega Superspeedway and Dover Motor Speedway in just the last month.
Richard Childress Racing teammates Love and Austin Hill finished second and third last week at Charlotte, marking the first time they’ve both been in the top five in a race since February at Austin’s Circuit of The Americas road course.
Their teammate this weekend at RCR is popular YouTube personality and ARCA Menards Series regular Cleetus McFarland, who will make his second career series start and first race ever on the Nashville oval, driving the No. 33 RCR Chevrolet.
Reigning NASCAR Cup Series champ Larson will be competing Saturday night, driving the JR Motorsports No. 88 Chevrolet. He’s already won two of his four previous O’Reilly Auto Parts Series starts — at Las Vegas and Texas — this season and has earned top-10 finishes in his last 10 starts in the series.
An interesting note about Nashville … the Stage 2 winner has gone on to win the race four of the last five years.
Practice is at 2 p.m. on Saturday, followed immediately by Kennametal Pole Qualifying at 3:05 p.m. ET (The CW App). Joe Gibbs Racing’s William Sawalich is the defending pole winner.