By David Morgan, Associate Editor
Ford has struck the first blow of Speedweeks.
Despite rolling into Daytona with the unknown of its new Mustang Dark Horse body for 2024, the Blue Oval brigade will have the best seat in the house to start Sunday’s 66th running of the Daytona 500 after Joey Logano and Michael McDowell locked out the front row in pole qualifying on Wednesday night.
Logano, the 2015 Daytona 500 champion and two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, powered his No. 22 Team Penske Ford around the 2.5-mile superspeedway in 49.465 seconds, 181.947 mph to capture his first pole in the Great American Race and break Chevrolet’s more than decade long streak of Daytona 500 poles.
“Anytime you walk into this area we’re standing here in Victory Lane, I don’t care if it’s qualifying or the Duel or the 500 it’s always special,” said Logano. “This is about the team. The driver doesn’t really do a whole bunch in qualifying here. I can’t take much credit today, so these guys did a tremendous job giving me a really fast Mustang.
“A couple Fords on the front row is something pretty special seeing those Mustangs up front here. It’s a pretty exciting start to Speedweek and hopefully tomorrow night we have a good one and we’ll be in the same spot.”
In addition to it being Logano’s first Daytona 500 pole, it is also the first time Team Penske has won a pole in the season opener in Florida – continuing the streak Roger Penske is on at Daytona after also winning the Rolex 24 two weeks prior.
“It’s obviously something really special,” Logano added. “There is more pride taken as a team for winning the Daytona 500 pole than any other pole in the season because of the amount of effort that goes in all winter long working on this race car. It’s nice to see that there’s a lot of speed there and it’s a pretty special moment for everyone at Team Penske and everybody back at the shop, Roush Yates building our engines. This is a real big team moment.”
McDowell, who won the 2021 Daytona 500, looked to be in the catbird seat for the pole until Logano’s run, but noted that he’s just as happy that he and his team will be starting from the front row on Sunday.
“The feeling is awesome,” said McDowell. This is the best that we have ever qualified down here. We’ve always had fast Ford Mustangs, but we really put an emphasis on seeing how much speed we could get out of it. We know that we can…
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