Michael McDowell cannot be stopped in qualifying at superspeedways.
The driver of Front Row Motorsports’ No. 34 won his sixth pole of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season at Talladega Superspeedway for Sunday’s (Oct. 6) Yellawood 500 with a speed of 183.063 mph. Five of his six poles have come on the drafting tracks of Daytona, Atlanta and Talladega, and he overtakes Kyle Larson for the most poles won this season.
Playoff driver Austin Cindric made it a front row sweep for Ford by clocking in at 182.424 mph. McDowell’s FRM teammate Todd Gilliland qualified third, while Kyle Busch and Ryan Blaney completed the top five.
Joey Logano, Austin Dillon, Denny Hamlin, Harrison Burton and Daniel Hemric rounded out the top 10.
Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott and Larson were the first to miss the final round of qualifying, starting 11th and 12th, respectively. Their teammates William Byron and Alex Bowman qualified 16th and 23rd.
Tyler Reddick, the winner at Talladega in April, finished the session 14th. Christopher Bell joined Reddick as the only other playoff Toyota out in round one, qualifying 21st.
Daniel Suarez and Chase Briscoe were the lowest qualifying playoff drivers, starting 31st and 36th, respectively.
Forty teams took to the track to qualify for Sunday’s race. Every driver will qualify, and Talladega will be the fifth race this season to feature a full 40-car field.
YellaWood 500 Qualifying Results
The green flag for the YellaWood 500 will wave on Sunday, Oct. 6 at 2 p.m. ET. TV coverage will be provided by NBC.
Wyatt Watson has followed motorsports closely since 2007. He joined Frontstretch as a journalist in February 2023 after serving in the United States Navy for five years as an Electronic Technician Navigation working on submarines. Wyatt is one of Frontstretch's primary IndyCar correspondents, providing exclusive video content on site. He hosts Frontstretch's Through the Gears podcast and occasionally The Pit Straight.You can find Wyatt's written work in columns such as Friday Faceoff and 2-Headed Monsteras well as exclusive IndyCar features. Wyatt also contributes to Frontstretch's social media team, posting unique and engaging content for Frontstretch.
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