Michael McDowell secured the pole for Saturday night’s NASCAR Cup Series Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway with a lap time of 49.136 seconds (183.165 mph) in the final round of Friday night’s qualifying session around the 2.5-mile superspeedway.
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This marks the fourth pole of McDowell’s season and of his NASCAR Cup Series career. While he was happy to take another pole, personally, McDowell was equally bummed for his Front Row Motorsports teammate Todd Gilliland, who he topped for the pole.
“I feel for Todd [Gilliland], I know he wanted his first pole so bad and this is our [fourth] this year, so it would have been nice to share the love but really proud of the No. 38 team and those guys have fought hard this year and I know that their time is coming, but today is awesome too.”
Gilliland, in the No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford Mustang Dark Horse, was just 0.098 seconds off the fast time set by his teammate in the No. 34 Ford.
The front row sweep for Front Row Motorsports is the first-ever front row sweep for the organization, which truly lived up to its name on Friday at Daytona.
“I’m just so proud of everybody at Front Row Motorsports,” McDowell said after he officially locked in his pole position. “To have both cars on the front row is amazing, just a testament to how hard everyone is working at Front Row. We know we got two shots left here. This is a big weekend for us, so to have both cars up front is really important. So, hopefully, we can stay up front, control the race, and give ourselves a fighting chance to get ourselves into the Playoffs.”
In a showcase of how equally prepared their cars are this week, Front Row Motorsports teammates Gilliland and McDowell, turned the same lap time (49.219 seconds) to pace the opening round of the qualifying session.
fellow Ford drivers Joey Logano, Ryan Preece, Josh Berry, and Chase Briscoe will start from positions three through six, while William Byron, Austin Cindric, Kyle Larson, and Chase Elliott rounded out the top-10 qualifiers for Saturday’s 400-mile event at Daytona International Speedway.
Erik Jones, the 2018 Coke Zero Sugar 400 winner, aborted his qualifying run due to an issue with his suspension. While traveling down the backstretch on his qualifying lap, his No. 43 LEGACY MOTOR CLUB Toyota Camry XSE was porpoising up and down like a jackhammer.
By bailing on his lap, Jones did not turn an official lap time, which means he will start 40th in Saturday night’s race at Daytona.
