Michael McDowell flexed his yearlong qualifying muscles on superspeedway venues and saved his best for last as he zoomed his way to the pole position for this weekend’s YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway on Saturday, October 5.
The 2021 Daytona 500 champion from Glendale, Arizona, was one of 10 from a list of 40-entered competitors to transfer into the second of two qualifying rounds consisting of one timed lap per round, with the top-10 competitors posting the 10-fastest lap times during the first round. After the first qualifying round, McDowell was the fastest qualifier with a lap at 182.944 mph in 52.344 seconds and was two-tenths of a second faster than Playoff contender Austin Cindric.
During the final round of qualifying, McDowell, who was the last of 10 second-round qualifiers to qualify, knocked Cindric off the top of the chart after he posted his pole-winning lap at 183.063 mph in 52.310 seconds, where he was nearly two-tenths of a second faster than Cindric.
As a result, McDowell, down to his final six races with Front Row Motorsports before joining Spire Motorsports in 2025, swept both Talladega poles of the 2024 Cup Series season. He also notched the sixth Cup pole of his career and of this season, with his latest occurring during the Playoff opener at Atlanta Motor Speedway in early September, and his fifth on superspeedway venues.
This weekend, McDowell will make his 28th attempt to win at Talladega in the Cup Series for the first time. Earlier in April, he led a race-high 36 of 188 scheduled laps from pole position and was leading on the final lap when he got turned off the front nose of Brad Keselowski through the frontstretch’s tri-oval and was involved in a multi-car wreck. Ultimately, McDowell ended up in 31st place in the final running order after he was unable to limp his damaged car to complete the final lap.
“It’s just amazing,” McDowell said on USA Network. “I’m just so proud of everybody on this No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops Ford Mustang team. It’s hard to come down here [at Talladega] and get the pole, but we found some things in the off-season [period]. [We] Went to Daytona, it worked, and we just kept that momentum going. We came down here with a game plan. The game plan was to sit on the pole, and we did that today. That should put us in the lead for the most poles for the year. That’s something we have circled, but there’s a lot of racing left. Hopefully, tomorrow goes smoother than [in April]. To get [six] poles is pretty amazing.”
Joining McDowell on the front row will be Austin Cindric, the highest-starting Playoff contender who posted his best lap at 182.424 mph in 52.493 seconds during the final round of qualifying. Cindric, the 2022 Daytona 500 champion, enters Talladega situated in 12th place in the Playoff standings and trailing the top-eight cutline by 29 points as he strives to climb his way back above the cutline prior to the conclusion of next weekend’s Round of 8 finale at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course.
Todd Gilliland, McDowell’s teammate at Front Row Motorsports, will start in third place for this weekend’s main event at Talladega, followed by Kyle Busch and Playoff contender Ryan Blaney on the starting grid. Playoff contender Joey Logano, Austin Dillon, Playoff contender Denny Hamlin, Harrison Burton and Daniel Hemric completed the top-10 starting positions.
With four of 12 Playoff competitors starting in the top 10, the remaining Playoff competitors include Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson, Tyler Reddick, William Byron, Christopher Bell, Alex Bowman, Daniel Suarez and Chase Briscoe, who will start 11th, 12th, 14th, 16th, 21st, 23rd, 31st and 36th, respectively.
*All 40 competitors entered for Sunday’s event at Talladega earned a starting spot.
Qualifying position, best speed, best time:
- Michael McDowell, 183.063 mph, 52.310 seconds
- Austin Cindric, 182.424 mph, 52.493 seconds
- Todd Gilliland, 182.258 mph, 52.541 seconds
- Kyle Busch, 181.863 mph, 52.655 seconds
- Ryan Blaney, 181.784 mph, 52.678 seconds
- Joey Logano, 181.687 mph, 52.706 seconds
- Austin Dillon, 181.567 mph, 52.741 seconds
- Denny Hamlin, 181.453 mph, 52.774 seconds
- Harrison Burton, 181.038 mph, 52.895 seconds
- Daniel Hemric, 180.980 mph, 52.912 seconds
- Chase Elliott, 181.322 mph, 52.812 seconds
- Kyle Larson, 181.292 mph, 52.821 seconds
- Brad Keselowski, 181.254 mph, 52.832 seconds
- Tyler Reddick, 181.223 mph, 52.841 seconds
- Ty Gibbs, 181.195 mph, 52.849 seconds
- William Byron, 181.007 mph, 52.904 seconds
- Shane van Gisbergen, 180.973 mph, 52.914 seconds
- Ryan Preece, 180.966 mph, 52.916 seconds
- Josh Berry, 180.911 mph, 52.932 seconds
- Chris Buescher, 180.700 mph, 52.994 seconds
- Christopher Bell, 180.655 mph, 53.007 seconds
- Noah Gragson, 180.642 mph, 53.011 seconds
- Alex Bowman, 180.638 mph, 53.012 seconds
- Martin Truex Jr., 180.611 mph, 53.020 seconds
- AJ Allmendinger, 180.529 mph, 53.044 seconds
- Bubba Wallace, 180.461 mph, 53.064 seconds
- Ross Chastain, 180.417 mph, 53.077 seconds
- Corey LaJoie, 179.932 mph, 53.220 seconds
- John Hunter Nemechek, 179.922 mph, 53.223 seconds
- Erik Jones, 179.801 mph, 53.259 seconds
- Daniel Suarez, 179.787 mph, 53.263 seconds
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr., 179.693 mph, 53.291 seconds
- Anthony Alfredo, 179.608 mph, 53.316 seconds
- Cody Ware, 179.581 mph, 53.324 seconds
- Justin Haley, 179.011 mph, 53.494 seconds
- Chase Briscoe, 178.997 mph, 53.498 seconds
- Carson Hocevar, 178.327 mph, 53.699 seconds
- BJ McLeod, 177.761 mph, 53.870 seconds
- Zane Smith, 177.593 mph, 53.921 seconds
- JJ Yeley, 174.847 mph, 54.768 seconds
The 2024 YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway is scheduled to occur this Sunday, October 6, and air at 2 p.m. ET on NBC.
