Michael McDowell continued his superspeedway qualifying dominance by securing the pole position for Sunday’s YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. Driving the No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet, McDowell posted a blistering lap of 52.481 seconds, averaging 182.466 mph in the final round of qualifying to top the charts.
This marks McDowell’s second pole of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season and the eighth of his career. It also extends his impressive streak at Talladega, where he has now qualified on pole in three of the last four races held at the 2.66-mile oval.
Chase Briscoe, widely regarded as the top qualifier of the season, will start alongside McDowell on the front row. Briscoe was narrowly edged out by just 0.019 seconds, but still leads all playoff contenders in starting position for the pivotal Round of 8 event.
Kyle Busch will roll off third, followed by Ford teammates Austin Cindric and Ryan Preece in fourth and fifth, respectively. The rest of the top ten includes Josh Berry, playoff drivers Christopher Bell and Ryan Blaney, and 23XI Racing teammates Riley Herbst and Bubba Wallace.
Several playoff hopefuls will face uphill battles on Sunday, with William Byron starting 13th, Joey Logano 16th, Denny Hamlin 17th, Kyle Larson 19th, and Chase Elliott deep in the field at 25th.
The YellaWood 500 is set to go green Sunday at 2 p.m. ET, broadcast live on NBC with only one race remaining after Talladega before the Championship 4 is set.