Michael McDowell hasn’t won a Cup Series race this year, but he’s putting together a legendary resume in qualifying across the 2024 season.
The No. 34 team missed the NASCAR playoffs last month and is still looking for that elusive first checkered flag of the season after multiple near-misses in the regular season.
The longtime driver and his racing team will have another great chance on Sunday after McDowell extended a stunning run at superspeedways that we haven’t seen in nearly 40 years.
McDowell wins fifth straight superspeedway pole
Before this season, McDowell had never won the pole in 467 career starts. He’s now won it six times this season after laying down the fastest lap in Saturday’s qualifying ahead of the YellaWood 500 on Sunday.
Those six poles are tied for the most in a single season by any driver since 2018. McDowell has also taken the top spot in five straight superspeedways – the longest run by anyone since Bill Elliott, who claimed his sixth straight at Talladega in 1986.
“We sort of had this in mind that today would be a day to come here and get the rest of the superspeedways locked down,” McDowell said.
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McDowell’s fastest lap (183.063 MPH) was 0.183 seconds faster than Austin Cindric, who will start on the front row as he competes in the NASCAR playoffs.
That gap between first and second is the largest at Talladega since 2017, when Ricky Stenhouse Jr. won qualifying and then won his first career race after taking the lead on the final lap.
McDowell nearly won the third race of his career – and first this season – at Talladega back in April, when he led on the final lap before spinning out to cause a massive pile-up across the finish line. He settled for 31st.
McDowell comments on NASCAR lawsuit: ‘There’s a problem’
McDowell’s pole on Saturday comes just days after his racing team, Front Row Motorsports, filed a joint antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR accusing it of operating as a monopoly.
When asked about the lawsuit after winning Saturday’s pole, McDowell ran through his experiences racing for near-bankrupt teams to now driving for Front Row – which he says relies on a “tremendous amount” of personal capital from owner Bob Jenkins to stay afloat.
“Every time we ask for more … it’s coming out of Bob’s pocket,” McDowell said.
READ MORE: How a bankrupt racing team earned final spot in NASCAR playoffs
That comes even with Front Row operating as the most “efficient” team in NASCAR, according to McDowell. That’s hard to argue given how well FRM has qualified and run at high-profile tracks like Talladega and Daytona, even without a win to show for it.
“There is nobody spending what we spend and performing how we perform,” McDowell said. “And if (Jenkins) has to spend his own money, there’s a problem.”
McDowell (first) and teammate Todd Gilliland (third) will both start from the front two rows as they seek their first win of the season in Sunday’s race, which starts at 2 p.m. ET on NBC.