Michael McDowell captured the Busch Light Pole Award for the YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway on Saturday, October 18.
The event’s qualifying format consisted of a single-vehicle, two-round impound format. Within this format, each of the 40 competitors entered to compete in the event cycled around Talladega to post a single lap. Afterward, the top-10 fastest competitors from the first round transferred to a second single-vehicle round and contested for the pole position.
During the first qualifying round, McDowell posted the fifth-fastest lap at 181.832 mph in 52.664 seconds, which was enough for him to be among 10 competitors who transferred to the second round. During the final round, the Glendale, Arizona, native posted a pole-winning lap at 182.466 mph in 52.481 seconds.
With the pole, McDowell, driver of the No. 71 Chevrolet entry for Spire Motorsports, notched his eighth NASCAR Cup Series career pole. It was also his third at Talladega, his sixth on a superspeedway venue and his second of the 2025 season. McDowell’s Talladega pole for the Chevrolet nameplate also snapped Ford’s recent dominance of notching Cup poles over the previous three superspeedway venues throughout this season.
“It’s something that we’ve been working really hard at at Spire Motorsports. Just getting more speed in our superseedway cars,” McDowell said. “To get a pole is awesome. I think everything went right. It’s no secret. The Fords have been kicking our butts at these [superspeedway venues]. We feel like we had some areas that we needed to gain. I felt like we gained them. To be sitting here with a pole is awesome. Hats off to everyone at Chevy and everyone at Spire Motorsports working really hard. It’s not a win, but we’ll take it. It’s awesome.”
McDowell will share the front row with Chase Briscoe, a 2025 Cup Series Playoff contender. Briscoe, who was the fastest competitor during the first qualifying round at 182.251 mph in 52.543 seconds, posted a qualifying lap of 182.466 mph in 52.481 seconds during the second round. Despite falling one spot short of capturing his eighth Cup pole of the 2025 season, Briscoe will have an advantageous start amongst his seven Playoff rivals entering Sunday’s second Round of 8 event. Currently, Briscoe is 15 points above the top-four cutline to make the Championship 4 round.
Non-Playoff contenders Kyle Busch, Austin Cindric and Ryan Preece will start in the top five, respectively. Josh Berry, another non-Playoff contender, qualified in sixth place ahead of Playoff contenders Christopher Bell and Ryan Blaney. Riley Herbst and Bubba Wallace completed the top-10 starting grid.
With only three of eight Playoff contenders qualifying in the top 10, the remaining contenders that include William Byron, Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin, Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott qualified 13th, 16th, 17th, 19th and 25th, respectively. Currently, Hamlin is the only Playoff contender who has qualified for the Championship 4 round after winning last weekend’s Round of 8 opener at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Briscoe, Larson and Bell are above the cutline while Byron, Elliott, Logano and Blaney trail.
With 40 competitors vying for 40 starting spots, all of the entered competitors made the event.
Qualifying position, Best speed, Best time:
1. Michael McDowell, 182.466 mph, 52.481 seconds
2. Chase Briscoe, 182.400 mph, 52.500 seconds
3. Kyle Busch, 182.199 mph, 52.558 seconds
4. Austin Cindric, 182.181 mph, 52.563 seconds
5. Ryan Preece, 182.116 mph, 52.582 seconds
6. Josh Berry, 182.005 mph, 52.614 seconds
7. Christopher Bell, 181.846 mph, 52.660 seconds
8. Ryan Blaney, 181.780 mph, 52.679 seconds
9. Riley Herbst, 181.735 mph, 52.692 seconds
10. Bubba Wallace, 181.728 mph, 52.694 seconds
11. Alex Bowman, 181.470 mph, 52.769 seconds
12. Cole Custer, 181.456 mph, 52.773 seconds
13. William Byron, 181.453 mph, 52.774 seconds
14. Chris Buescher, 181.357 mph, 52.802 seconds
15. Tyler Reddick, 181.329 mph, 52.810 seconds
16. Joey Logano, 181.298 mph, 52.819 seconds
17. Denny Hamlin, 181.292 mph, 52.821 seconds
18. Ty Gibbs, 181.178 mph, 52.854 seconds
19. Kyle Larson, 181.120 mph, 52.871 seconds
20. Brad Keselowski, 181.058 mph, 52.889 seconds
21. Austin Dillon, 180.959 mph, 52.918 seconds
22. Justin Haley, 180.894 mph, 52.937 seconds
23. Zane Smith, 180.867 mph, 52.945 seconds
24. Ross Chastain, 180.833 mph, 52.955 seconds
25. Chase Elliott, 180.819 mph, 52.959 seconds
26. Daniel Suarez, 180.744 mph, 52.981 seconds
27. Todd Gilliland, 180.693 mph, 52.996 seconds
28. John Hunter Nemechek, 180.679 mph, 53 seconds
29. Ty Dillon, 180.649 mph, 53.009 seconds
30. Erik Jones, 180.604 mph, 53.022 seconds
31. Shane van Gisbergen, 180.346 mph, 53.098 seconds
32. Carson Hocevar, 180.295 mph, 53.113 seconds
33. Austin Hill, 180.288 mph, 53.115 seconds
34. AJ Allmendinger, 180.264 mph, 53.122 seconds
35. Cody Ware, 179.848 mph, 53.245 seconds
36. Noah Gragson, 179.571 mph, 53.327 seconds
37. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., 179.225 mph, 53.430 seconds
38. Anthony Alfredo, 179.048 mph, 53.430 seconds
39. BJ McLeod, 178.550 mph, 53.632 seconds
40. Casey Mears, 177.564 mph, 53.930 seconds
*Bold indicates Playoff contenders
The 2025 YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway is scheduled to occur on Sunday, October 19, and air at 2 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN Radio, SiriusXM and HBO Max.
