After a rare weekend off, only eight races remain to set the 12-driver Chase field, with the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series returning to action at Pocono Raceway in Saturday’s MillerTech Battery 250 presented by KOA (4 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Connor Zilisch is the defending race winner. The only full-time O’Reilly driver with a past victory in the series’ 10-year history at the track is Austin Hill, driver of the No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, who won in 2023.
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As has become the theme for the season, the question is whether anyone can slow JR Motorsports driver Justin Allgaier’s torrid pace. The 2024 series champion is turning in a career year — his four wins already one victory shy of his career best mark.
Allgaier leads all drivers in everything from trophies to top fives (11), top 10s (13), average finish (7.9), laps led (422) and stage wins (six). He’s finished first or second seven times. Perhaps most impressive is that his 179 points over Richard Childress Racing’s Jesse Love (the defending series champion) atop the driver standings is larger than the gap between second place and 11th place (Sam Mayer).
Rather than discouraging the competition, Allgaier’s dominance has instead been motivating.
Love, who finished second to Zilisch last year at Pocono, has been close to a trophy, finishing runner-up three times and failing to win even after leading the most laps at Nashville Superspeedway, the series’ most recent race.
He’s the only driver ranked among the top four without a victory. Yet only halfway through the calendar, and he’s already led more laps (374) than he has in any previous entire season.
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The competition at the other end of the Chase standings is tight; positions 10th (Parker Retzlaff) through 15th (Ryan Sieg) are separated by only 32 points.
The last three Pocono race winners — Hill, Cole Custer and Zilisch — are all entered this weekend, as is Cup Series regular William Byron. Practice gets underway at 10:30 a.m. ET Saturday, followed by qualifying at 11:35 a.m. ET, with both sessions airing on The CW App. Custer is the only polesitter (2019) to win at Pocono.