{"id":55325,"date":"2025-10-18T15:10:49","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T20:10:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=55325"},"modified":"2025-10-19T12:03:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T17:03:11","slug":"mcdowell-wins-pole-for-sundays-talladega-playoff-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/18\/mcdowell-wins-pole-for-sundays-talladega-playoff-race\/","title":{"rendered":"McDowell wins pole for Sunday’s Talladega Playoff race"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

TALLADEGA, Ala. \u2013 Michael McDowell may be driving for a new team this year, but the Spire Motorsports driver still proved himself absolutely one of the fastest at a superspeedway, earning the Busch Light pole position for Sunday\u2019s YellaWood 500 Playoff race at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway (2 p.m. ET, NBC, NRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).<\/p>\n

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Michael McDowell, driver of the #71 Carolina Handling Chevrolet, poses for photos after winning the pole award during qualifying for the NASCAR Cup Series YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway on October 18, 2025 in Talladega, Alabama. (Photo by Chris Graythen\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

McDowell turned in a lap of 182.466 mph in the No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet Saturday afternoon to claim the lead position in Sunday\u2019s pivotal NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race \u2013 the second of the final three-race round to determine which four drivers will be championship-eligible in the Nov. 2 finale.<\/p>\n

McDowell bettered Playoff driver Chase Briscoe by a slight .019-second on the lap around the 2.66-mile track. It\u2019s the eighth pole position of McDowell’s career and the second of the season, matching his work at the 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway in March.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know Talladega for qualifying there\u2019s not a whole lot the driver does but try not to make any mistakes,\u2019\u2019 said the 40-year old Arizona-native McDowell, the 2021 Daytona 500 winner.<\/p>\n

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Michael McDowell, driver of the #71 Carolina Handling Chevrolet, signs the Busch Light Pole Award backdrop after winning the pole award during qualifying for the NASCAR Cup Series YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway on October 18, 2025 in Talladega, Alabama. (Photo by Chris Graythen\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWe were looking forward to seeing where our car was at and if we made any gains from the first two superspeedway races. We didn\u2019t know where we were at today just because we didn\u2019t have the baseline [at the rained out qualifying session] at Daytona [this summer]. We\u2019ve worked really hard to find some speed, everybody at Hendrick engine shop as well, just trying to catch up at these superspeedways.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving a fast car is important and being able to lead lanes and control lanes you have to have speed to do that. The pole is awesome but more important just knowing you have a fast car going into the race tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Richard Childress Racing\u2019s Kyle Busch was third fastest in the No.  8 Chevrolet followed by the Fords of Team Penske\u2019s Austin Cindric, Roush Fenway Keselowski\u2019s Ryan Preece and Wood Brothers Racing\u2019s Josh Berry \u2013 all non-Playoff competitors.<\/p>\n

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Michael McDowell, driver of the #71 Carolina Handling Chevrolet, poses for photos after winning the pole award during qualifying for the NASCAR Cup Series YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway on October 18, 2025 in Talladega, Alabama. (Photo by Chris Graythen\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Joe Gibbs Racing\u2019s Christopher Bell and Penske\u2019s Ryan Blaney \u2013 both among the eight-driver Playoff field \u2013 will start seventh and eighth followed by non-Playoff drivers, 23XI Racing teammates Riley Herbst ad Bubba Wallace.<\/p>\n

The regular season champion, Hendrick Motorsports\u2019 William Byron will roll off 13th in the No. 24 Chevrolet with Penske\u2019s Joey Logano and Joe Gibbs Racing\u2019s Denny Hamlin starting 16th and 17th. Hendrick teammates Kyle Larson (19th) and Chase Elliott (25th) round out the Playoff field on the grid.<\/p>\n

Hamlin already earned a position in the Phoenix Raceway final four with a victory last week at Las Vegas. Larson goes into the race with a 35-point advantage on the Playoff line with JGR teammates Bell (plus-20) and Briscoe (plus-15) currently above the cutoff line.<\/p>\n

Byron (-15), Elliott (-23), Logano (-24) and Blaney (-31) are below the elimination line. Elliott, Logano and Blaney are all former Talladega race winners.<\/p>\n

HYAK Motorsports\u2019 driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr. is the defending race winner and will roll off 37th in the 40-car field.<\/p>\n

Interview: NCS Busch Light Pole Winner – Michael McDowell – <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service TALLADEGA, Ala. \u2013 Michael McDowell may be driving for a new team this year, but the Spire Motorsports driver still proved himself absolutely one of the fastest at a superspeedway, earning the Busch Light pole position for Sunday\u2019s YellaWood 500 Playoff race at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway (2 p.m. ET, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":55312,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[711,16,208],"class_list":["post-55325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-michael-mcdowell","tag-nascar","tag-talladega-superspeedway"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-2241863015-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1790&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-eol","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55325"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55330,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55325\/revisions\/55330"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}