Front Row Motorsports (FRM) has lived up to its name once again, placing second-year NASCAR Cup Series driver Zane Smith on the pole for Sunday’s Jack Link’s 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.
Smith, driving the No. 38 TitleMax-sponsored Ford Mustang Dark Horse, posted a quick time of 52.565 seconds (182.174mph) in the second and final round of qualifying to secure the top spot.
It’s the first pole in the NASCAR Cup Series for the Huntington Beach, California-native, whose previous best starting spot at NASCAR’s top-level was seventh at Atlanta Motor Speedway in February.
“I wish I could take a lot of the credit for it, but truthfully, just a really fast [Front Row Motorsports] Ford,” Smith said after qualifying. “TitleMax on the car, just so cool. A polesitter in the Cup Series, that’s awesome.”
It’s the eighth pole position for Front Row Motorsports in the NASCAR Cup Series, and the first from the No. 38 team since the 2014 Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway, courtesy of David Gilliland.
STARTING LINEUP: 2025 NCS Jack Link’s 400 at Talladega
Michael McDowell won an incredible six poles last season in the No. 34 for Front Row Motorsports, five of which were at the superspeedways of Daytona, Atlanta, and Talladega.
“Just a huge shoutout to all of these guys, they’ve been doing an awesome job this year,” Smith added. Long, long race tomorrow but a great starting spot, so super stoked for this.”
Smith will be lining up alongside two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion and 2023 Spring Talladega winner Kyle Busch on Sunday, after he put his No. 8 NicoKick Chevrolet on the outside of the front row.
Defending NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano will roll from third-place in Sunday’s event at Talladega, after matching – to the thousandth of a second – the lap time of Ryan Preece, who will start in fourth.
Austin Dillon continued an incredible run of superspeedway qualifying results by Richard Childress Racing, by rounding out the top five in his No. 3 Bass Pro Shops / Winchester Chevrolet.
Chris Buescher was sixth in the final round of qualifying, with Austin Cindric, Josh Berry, Ryan Blaney, and Joe Gibbs Racing driver Ty Gibbs completing the opening five rows to start Sunday’s 500-mile contest.
Other notables that failed to advance to the final round of qualifying include Christopher Bell (11th), Denny Hamlin (13th), William Byron (16th), DAYTONA 500 polesitter Chase Briscoe (17th), Alex Bowman (18th), Bubba Wallace (20th), Brad Keselowski (22nd), Kyle Larson (25th), Tyler Reddick (26th), Chase Elliott (30th), and Ross Chastain (32nd)
The winner of last Fall’s post-season event at Talladega, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., qualified 35th, driving the No. 47 NOS Energy Drink Chevrolet for HYAK Motorsports.
Justin Haley, fresh off a crew chief swap at Spire Motorsports, qualified a disappointing 37th. The slowest of the 39 entries was JJ Yeley, who posted a time of 55.671 seconds, three seconds off the quickest driver.
The Jack Link’s 500 will take place on Sunday, April 27 at 3:00 PM ET on FOX, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90. In-car cameras and radio communications are available to stream on MAX.
