Story By: HOLLY CAIN / NASCAR – DAYTONA BEACH, FL – Former Daytona 500 winner Michael McDowell captured the pole position for Saturday night’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) – his fourth career pole, but first at the sport’s iconic track.
It will be an all Front Row Motorsports front row thanks to McDowell’s qualifying lap of 183.165 mph around the 2.5-mile high banks in the No. 34 FRM Ford during Friday evening’s Busch Light Pole Qualifying session. His teammate Todd Gilliland will start beside him in the No. 38 FRM Ford – the two actually posting the exact same time in the first round of qualifying.
Ford Motor Company swept the top-six positions in time trials and had seven cars in the top 10 on the Daytona speed chart.
“Qualifying has never been a strength at superspeedways for us [as a team] but racing has,’’ McDowell said with a smile. “We just decided, okay, we are going to take as much time as we possibly have available to execute everything we can to the best of our ability.’’
“We just proved to ourselves with a lot of extra time put in, it has paid off,’’ he said of the team’s emphasis on improving qualifying at the big tracks such as Daytona.
Joey Logano, the 2015 Daytona 500 winner, will start third in the No. 22 Team Penske Ford, followed by Ryan Preece in the No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford and teammates Josh Berry in the No. 4 SHR Ford and Chase Briscoe in the No. 14 SHR Ford.
This year’s Daytona 500 winner William Byron was seventh fastest in the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, with Team Penske’s Austin Cindric – the 2022 Daytona 500 winner – starting from the eighth position. Hendrick Motorsports teammates Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott rounded out the top 10.
The starting positions are key for Front Row Motorsports who is still trying to qualify for the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs and will need a race win to jump into the 16-driver Playoff field with only two races remaining to settle the championship eligibility.
“When it comes to tomorrow night, we’ll do what we always do. We’re going to race and help ourselves get to the front and stay in the front and be in good position,’’ McDowell said, adding. “The best thing we can do for our team and ourselves is work together because we have fast cars.”
Defending race winner, Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing’s Chris Buescher holds a 16-point advantage in 15th place and Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain takes a mere one point lead into Saturday night’s race. They will start 13th and 24th, respectively. 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace, who sits just behind Chastain a single point back, will start 18th.
