Corey Day recorded his first career NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series pole for the Ecosave 200 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Friday, March 14.
The event’s starting lineup was determined through a standard practice and qualifying procedure, The field was split into two 25-minute practice sessions apiece before rejoining forces and participating in one single-lap qualifying session (impound). The groups and qualifying order were determined by metrics. Seventy percent is based on the previous race finish by owner and 30% based on owner points standings. The best-scoring competitors are placed in the second group.
Pole Winner
During the qualifying session, Day steered the No. 7 HendrickCars.com/Spire Motorsports Chevrolet Silverado RST to a pole-winning lap at 177.702 mph in 30.388 seconds. Notably, he was also the fifth-fastest competitor in practice earlier on Friday, It was enough to edge Tyler Ankrum and claim the top-starting spot for his fifth career start in the series on Friday night at Sin City.
With the pole, Day, a 19-year-old native of Clovis, California, became the 144th competitor overall to win a Truck Series pole position. He is also the second first-time series pole winner of the 2025 season. Connor Mosack claimed his first pole at Atlanta Motor Speedway in February. It was the sixth Truck career pole for Spire Motorsports and the third for the organization’s No. 7 Chevrolet team led by veteran crew chief Brian Pattie.
Friday night’s event at Las Vegas will mark the first of eight events for Corey Day in the Truck Series with Spire Motorsports in 2025. This comes after he inked a development deal with Hendrick Motorsports and will compete in select Xfinity Series events throughout this season. The Californian will now strive to contend for his first Truck victory.
“Oh man, I’m shaking,” Day said on FS1. “I just haven’t had much success with this stuff. Just really been a struggle for me, so really awesome to get a pole and [crew chief] Brian Pattie definitely made my job easy there. So hopefully, we can carry it into tonight. Just huge thanks to Hendrick Motorsports, HendrickCars.com for believing in me and giving me this opportunity.”
Qualifying
Day will share the front row with Tyler Ankrum, who posted his best qualifying lap at 177.602 mph in 30.405 seconds. Ironically, Ankrum finished in the runner-up spot at Las Vegas a year ago. He continues his pursuit of his first series win since winning at Kentucky Speedway in 2019.
Jake Garcia, Justin Haley and Stewart Friesen will start in the top five, respectively. Rajah Caruth, the reigning Truck winner at Las Vegas, qualified in sixth place. Ty Majeski, rookie Giovanni Ruggiero, Dawson Sutton and Connor Mosack completed the top-10 starting spots.
Notably, the following names that included Matt Crafton, Daniel Hemric, rookie Andres Perez de Lara, Ben Rhodes, Corey Heim, Chandler Smith, Tanner Gray, Grant Enfinger, Layne Riggs, William Sawalich, rookie Toni Breidinger and rookie Frankie Muniz qualified 11th, 12th, 13th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 20th, 23rd, 25th, 27th and 29th, respectively. In addition, Nathan Byrd was the only competitor who did not post a qualifying lap. As a result, he will round out the 31-truck grid by starting in 31st place.
With 31 competitors vying for 31 starting spots, all of the entered competitors made the main event.
Starting Lineup
Qualifying position, best speed, best time:
1. Corey Day, 177.702 mph, 30.388 seconds
2. Tyler Ankrum, 177.404 mph, 30.439 seconds
3. Jake Garcia, 177.404 mph, 30.439 seconds
4. Justin Haley, 177.398 mph, 30.44 seconds
5. Stewart Friesen, 177.241 mph, 30.467 seconds
6. Rajah Caruth, 176.927 mph, 30.521 seconds
7. Ty Majeski, 176.811 mph, 30.541 seconds
8. Giovanni Ruggerio, 176.788 mph, 30.545 seconds
9. Dawson Sutton, 176.563 mph, 30.584 seconds
10. Connor Mosack, 176.424 mph, 30.608 seconds
11. Matt Crafton, 176.327 mph, 30.625 seconds
12. Daniel Hemric, 176.2, 30.68 seconds
13. Andres Perez de Lara, 176.01 mph, 30.68 seconds
14. Jack Wood, 175.861 mph, 30.706 seconds
15. Ben Rhodes, 175.85 mph, 30.708 seconds
16. Corey Heim, 175.844 mph, 30.709 seconds
17. Chandler Smith, 175.81 mph, 30.715 seconds
18. Tanner Gray, 175.69 mph, 30.736 seconds
19. Bayley Currey, 175.484 mph, 30.772 seconds
20. Grant Enfinger, 175.433 mph, 30.781 seconds
21. Spencer Boyd, 175.393 mph, 30.788 seconds
22. Kaden Honeycutt, 175.359 mph, 30.794 seconds
23. Layne Riggs, 175.256 mph, 30.812 seconds
24. Matt Mills, 175.165 mph, 30.828 seconds
25. William Sawalich, 174.825 mph, 30.888 seconds
26. Luke Fenhaus, 174.712 mph, 30.908 seconds
27. Toni Breidinger, 174.498 mph, 30.946 seconds
28. Josh Reaume, 173.099 mph, 31.196 seconds
29. Frankie Muniz, 171.434 mph, 31.499 seconds
30. Stephen Mallozzi, 164.745 mph, 32.778 seconds
31. Nathan Byrd, 0 mph, 0 seconds
The 2025 Ecosave 200 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway is set to occur on Friday, March 14, and air at 9 p.m. ET on FS1.
