Saturday Talladega Cup Series Notebook

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 12^th place, some 29 points below the cut-off line.

“It’s definitely important,” said Cindric. “It certainly gives us options from a strategy standpoint and obviously shows that we have a really fast Discount Tire Ford Mustang, but, once again, the Fords are really fast on these types of racetracks, so I’m proud of everybody at Ford Performance and Team Penske. 

“You see the consistency there with all of our cars really, really close. Everybody in the shop should be proud of that one and we’ve got something to race with tomorrow.”

Todd Gilliland and Kyle Busch will make up the second row, followed by the Team Penske duo of Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano, Austin Dillon, Denny Hamlin, Harrison Burton, and Daniel Hemric to round out the top-10 starters.

The remaining Playoff drivers will start 11^th (Chase Elliott), 12^th (Kyle Larson), 14^th (Tyler Reddick), 16^th (William Byron), 21^st (Christopher Bell), 23^rd (Alex Bowman), 31^st (Daniel Suarez), and 36^th (Chase Briscoe).

Uneasiness for Playoff Drivers at Talladega

With none of the Playoff drivers locked in as of yet and two wild card races to close out the Round of 12, all of the Playoff drivers are treading lightly when it comes to Talladega knowing they have to be aggressive for stage points and trying to contend for the best finish possible, but also keeping in mind the unpredictability of racing at this track and how one wrong move could spell doom for their chances to advance.

Christiopher Bell is one driver who could feel relatively safe with a 28-point advantage over the cut-off line, but given Bell’s track record at Talladega, where it’s either hit or miss for the driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. In the spring race, Bell finished 38^th after getting involved in a crash.

“Right here. Yeah, right here,” Bell said of his weaknesses in the Playoffs.

“This is definitely one that I don’t really feel great about. And you know, our goal going of getting here was to have points in the bank. Fortunately, we were able to do a pretty good job of it. But yeah, I mean, if we can survive this race, I mean the rest of the schedule really lines up good for us.”

Likewise for Kyle Larson, who has not finished inside the top-10 at Talladega since the spring of 2022, and since then has only managed a 15^th place result as his best finish.

Larson comes in 18-points up on the cut line, but that advantage could evaporate in a hurry at this track if things go sideways for the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team.

“Obviously with my track record here, I would have loved to have been more than 18 points above the cut line coming to this event,” said Larson.

“But, you know, I feel like I say it every time to come here, which I only have one top-five finish in my career, but we do a good job. If you dig back and like actually look at the races, we do a good job and we’re up front at most of ’em. At the end just get caught up in a crash. So, hopefully this week it’s a little different.”

Joey Logano has three wins at Talladega, but since finishing third in the fall of 2021, the driver of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford has hit a streak of bad luck with five straight finishes of 19^th or worse.

Given his precarious points position, sitting only four points above the cut line, Logano is hoping to turn things around and channel some of the same luck that propelled him to victory at Atlanta to start the postseason.

“I mean, it’s not as comfortable as it was last round when we won Atlanta,” said Logano. “And you can cruise control it through, but this is obviously. There’s a lot on the line.

“You’re going to a racetrack like Talladega where anything can happen, but all you can do is just do what we’ve done, every year in the Playoffs. You focus in, you try to maximize the day. Anything that’s in front of you try to tackle it and then you just move forward from there and see what you got.”