Front Row Motorsports continued to live up to its name at superspeedways on Aug. 23 as past Daytona 500 winner Michael McDowell won the pole for the NASCAR Cup Series’ Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway.
McDowell, securing his fourth front row superspeedway start this season, beat out teammate Todd Gilliland with a lap at 183.165 mph.
It’s the fastest time set at Daytona since the introduction of the Next Gen car.
Ford’s Roush-Yates engines had a strong showing in qualifying, taking seven of the top 10 spots. Joey Logano will start third for Team Penske. Ryan Preece, Josh Berry and Chase Briscoe from Stewart-Haas Racing made up the rest of the all-Ford front three rows.
Defending Daytona 500 champion William Byron qualified seventh. Austin Cindric, Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott rounded out the top 10.
Erik Jones, who abandoned his qualifying lap, will start last in the 40-car field. No one failed to qualify.
Daytona Cup Starting Lineup
The Coke Zero Sugar 400 on Saturday is scheduled to go green at 7:53 p.m. ET. The race will be on NBC and streamed on Peacock beginning at 7 p.m. ET.
James Krause joined Frontstretch in March 2024 as a contributor. Krause was born and raised in Illinois and graduated from Northern Illinois University. He currently works in La Crosse, Wisconsin as a local sports reporter, including local short track racing. Outside of racing, Krause loves to keep up with football, music, anime and video games.