Jesse Love, the defending NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series champion and the winner of the series’ most-recent event at WWT Raceway, will lead the field to green in Friday’s Food City 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway, after an extended lightning hold forced the cancellation of time trials.

The starting lineup for Friday’s 300-lapper at Bristol, the third race in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Chase, will be set by the Rule Book, which dictates that NASCAR’s Performance Metric will be used to determine the lineup.

Courtesy of a win last time out at Gateway, Love will start from P1.

Sheldon Creed and Sam Mayer, teammates from Haas Factory Team, will roll off from second and third in Friday’s event. Carson Kvapil will start fourth, with Taylor Gray rounding out the top-five.

Brent Crews, Parker Retzlaff, Sammy Smith, Justin Allgaier, and Rajah Caruth will complete the top-10 starters, all of whom, between the Driver’s and Owner’s Points, are in the Chase for the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series title.

Brandon Jones (11th), Austin Hill (20th), and Corey Day (26th) are the three Chase contenders who will start from outside the top-10.

With 39 drivers entered in Friday’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series event at Bristol Motor Speedway, one team was forced to head back home early, that being SPS Racing and Landon S. Huffman, both of whom were trying to make their debut in NASCAR’s second-tier series.

The Food City 300 will take place Friday, September 18 at 7:30 PM ET on The CW.

Photo: Rory Malloy