Michael McDowell Notches Fifth Career Pole; Fourth Superspeedway Pole of 2024

It may be the first race of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, but Michael McDowell and Front Row Motorsports are looking to play spoiler, scoring the pole for Sunday’s Quaker State 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

McDowell laid down a quick lap in the second round of time trials on Saturday, clocking in at 30.927 seconds (179.261mph) to win the pole for Sunday’s 400-mile contest from the 1.5-mile superspeedway.

It’s a remarkable fifth pole position of the year for McDowell, who entered the season having never led a NASCAR Cup Series field to the green.

Defending NASCAR Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney was the best of the playoff-eligible drivers, starting second place, less than a tenth of a second behind McDowell’s quick time in the second round.

Todd Gilliland will start Sunday’s event from third place, as the Front Row Motorsports driver once again watched his teammate claim the top spot in qualifying while earning his fourth top-five starting spot of 2024.

Stewart-Haas Racing driver Josh Berry posted the fourth-quickest lap time, with Austin Cindric rounding out the top five. Kyle Larson, Joey Logano, Austin Dillon, William Byron, and Chase Briscoe will complete the first five rows.

STARTING LINEUP: Quaker State 400 at Atlanta

Only six of the 16 drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs posted a time quick enough to advance to the final round of time trials, all coming from manufacturers Ford or Chevrolet.

Alex Bowman and Harrison Burton were the first two playoff-eligible drivers outside the top-10 and will share the sixth row after clocking in 11th and 12th-place. Chase Elliott was 16th, with Brad Keselowski qualifying 19th.

The Toyota-supported playoff drivers; Ty Gibbs (20th), Martin Truex, Jr. (22nd), Tyler Reddick (23rd), Christopher Bell (26th), and Denny Hamlin (38th) will have some major ground to make up in Sunday’s Quaker State 400.

According to a report from PRN, Hamlin, Joe Gibbs Racing, and Toyota are working to diagnose a potential issue on the No. 11 Toyota Camry XSE, after the Chesterfield, Virginia native reports he heard a pop during his lap.

"Just something in the powertrain, certainly wasn't up to speed," Hamlin explained. "They're going to look into it, and hopefully come up with the fix. But certainly there is something wrong there that they will get fixed overnight."

"Yeah, I don't think it's going to be a huge deal," Hamlin predicted. "Certainly, it's not ideal. We wish we'd be up front with good track position, but overall, I think with how this race plays out you're going to have some want to race, some not. I think that we didn't have any false hopes that we were going to qualify that well here, anyway, but certainly didn't expect it. Glad we had at least that one lap to identify that we had a problem."

Daniel Suarez, who locked into the post-season with a victory at Atlanta in February, will start from 30th in his No. 99 Quaker State Chevrolet Camaro. The Monterrey, Mexico native started 23rd in the Spring when he went on to win the race in a three-wide photo finish with Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch.

The Quaker State 400 Available at Walmart, the first race of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, will take place on Saturday, September 8 at 3:00 PM ET on USA Network, PRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Channel 90).

Photo: Nigel Kinrade, NKP for Ford Performance