Rain early Saturday altered the schedule at Daytona International Speedway, but a break provided NASCAR the chance to one round of qualifying.
Love was among the last of the 44 cars to make an attempt and quickly bolted to the top of the leaderboard with an average speed of 181.079 mph, just barely supplanting his Richard Childress Racing teammate Austin Hill (181.068 mph).
The pole comes in Love’s first series start. The reining ARCA Menards Series champion is running the full season in RCR’s No. 2 Chevrolet.
“Thank you to ECR. We got big steam under the hood,” said Love. “Our RCR cars and just bad-fast here – all superspeedways in fact. I’m just super-grateful for the opportunity and I’m really blessed to be in this position.”
A.J. Allmendinger will start third, Parker Kligerman fourth and Shane van Gisbergen will line up fifth.
Completing the top-10 starting lineup are Justin Allagier, Jeremy Clements, John Hunter Nemechek, Parker Retzlaff and Anthony Alfredo.
The following drivers failed to make the race: David Starr (time disallowed after failing post-qualifying inspection), Kyle Sieg, Caesar Bacarella, CJ McLaughlin, Joey Gase, and Stanton Barrett.
The 300-mile race is scheduled to go green at 4:30 p.m. ET but rain is expected in the area again this afternoon.
The final Cup Series practice of the week was canceled earlier Saturday morning as was Xfinity qualifying.
Van Gisbergen, the three-time Supercars champion, will be making his 2024 NASCAR series debut. He competed in Friday night’s ARCA Menards Series season opener, got caught up in a multi-car lap 4 wreck and finished 29th.
Van Gisbergen, signed with Trackhouse Racing, will run full-time in Xfinity with Kaulig Racing and do at least seven Cup races.
In Friday’s lone Xfinity practice prior to the race, Jeb Burton posted the fastest average lap speed and was followed by Sammy Smith, Sheldon Creed, Cole Custer and Ryan Truex.
Among those drivers who ran at least 10 consecutive laps, Creed had the fastest average speed followed by Custer and Smith.
