Michael McDowell claimed one more NASCAR Cup Collection superspeedway pole Saturday at Talladega.
The Entrance Row Motorsports driver ran a 183.063mph (52.310s) lap within the closing spherical of qualifying. It’s his series-leading sixth pole of the season (and of his profession) and fifth consecutive at a superspeedway. The one superspeedway McDowell didn’t win the pole at was the season-opening Daytona 500, the place he began second.
Austin Cindric (P) certified second at 182.424mph; Todd Gilliland, third at 182.258mph; Kyle Busch, fourth at 181.863mph and Ryan Blaney (P), fifth at 181.784mph.
Blaney is the defending race winner.
Joey Logano (P) ran sixth at 181.687mph; Austin Dillon, seventh at 181.567mph; and Denny Hamlin (P), eighth at 181.453mph; Harrison Burton, ninth at 181.038mph and Daniel Hemric, tenth at 180.980 mph.
Chase Elliot (P) and Kyle Larson (P) will begin eleventh and twelfth (181.007mph and 181.292mph respectively). Tyler Reddick (P) solely mustered 14th (181.223mph). Behind him, fellow playoff contenders William Byron and Christopher Bell certified sixteenth and twenty first (181.007mph and 180.655mph respectively). Alex Bowman certified simply twenty third at 180.638mph, and Daniel Suarez was mired in thirty first at 179.787mph. The bottom qualifying playoff driver was Chase Briscoe in thirty sixth with a lap of 178.997mph.
There are 40 drivers entered within the occasion. Sunday is the second race within the Spherical of 12 for the Cup Collection playoffs.
Saturday’s qualifying session was the one on-track time for Cup Collection groups.
NEXT: YellaWood 500 at 2 p.m. ET Sunday (NBC).
P denotes Cup Collection playoff driver.
