By David Morgan, Associate Editor
TALLADEGA, Ala. – Déjà vu.
Michael McDowell continued his reign as king of superspeedway qualifying in 2024, blasting around the 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway in his No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford in 52.310 seconds, 183.063 mph to capture his fifth straight superspeedway pole and sixth overall this season.
“Talladega qualifying there’s not a tremendous amount to it, but we knew coming here that we would have a shot at the pole. It was a priority for us,” McDowell said.
“A lot of effort went into it, so you feel that pressure of not making any mistakes and not screwing it up. Just really proud of our team. I mean, it’s very difficult to come down to these superspeedways and have cars that we have and continue to bring cars that we’ve brought every weekend, so really proud of the effort. It’s amazing.
“We sort of had this in mind, that today would be a day that we’d come down here and try to get the rest of the superspeedways locked down and really proud that we were able to accomplish it.”
After scoring the pole at Talladega in the spring, McDowell was in position for the win up until the last lap when an ill-timed block sent him spinning.
He explained that he hasn’t fully rewatched a replay of the spring race, knowing the outcome and how it affected his chances of making it to the Playoffs for a second week in a row. Instead, he is focusing on coming back here on Sunday and making a run at the victory once again before he says goodbye to Front Row Motorsport at season’s end.
“That was my shot to make the Playoffs. That was our shot to get a win and it slipped out of our hands, but the reason I don’t want to watch it and the reason why I don’t reflect on it is because I’m staying in this moment,” McDowell said.
“Tomorrow is a new day, a new opportunity and we’ll have a shot of winning the race. I’m gonna think about the things I need to do to win the race tomorrow and try not to fixate too much on what happened last time. You learn from it and you definitely, like I said right after, I studied it hard for hours and figured out a game plan of what I would do different, and so we sort of have that locked in and try to move on.”
Austin Cindric will join him on the front row as he looks to get back in the Playoff fight, coming into the weekend sitting at the bottom of the Playoff standings in 12th place, some 29 points below…
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