Michael McDowell soars to Atlanta pole for Cup playoff opener

HAMPTON, Ga. — In Saturday‘s NASCAR Cup Series time trials, Michael McDowell reaffirmed his mastery of qualifying on drafting tracks, winning the pole for Sunday‘s Quaker State 400 available at Walmart at Atlanta Motor Speedway, the first race in the Cup Series Playoffs (3 p.m. ET on USA, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

McDowell posted one of only two sub-31-second laps in the final round (30.926 seconds), touring the 1.54-mile speedway at 179.267 mph. He edged defending series champion Ryan Blaney (178.844 mph) for the top starting spot by 0.073 seconds.

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McDowell was one of three non-playoff drivers who qualified in the top four. His Front Row Motorsports teammate Todd Gilliland was third at 178.770 mph, followed by Stewart-Haas Racing‘s Josh Berry at 178.453 mph, as Ford drivers claimed the first five starting spots for Sunday‘s race.

The Busch Light Pole Award was McDowell‘s fifth of the season, second at Atlanta and fourth straight on a track that uses the superspeedway competition package. All five of McDowell‘s career poles have come this year.

“I‘m just so proud of everyone at Front Row [Motorsports],” McDowell said. “I knew we had a shot based on Daytona (where McDowell won the pole two races ago), and we sat on the pole here earlier.

“One thing I think we‘ve done really well, we led a lot of laps and our car drove really well… sometimes you‘ll trim them out and get a lot of speed, and when you get into the race, it‘ll be just a handful. I don‘t feel like we‘re compromising anything going into the race with the speed that we have.”

Blaney was the fastest of six playoff drivers who qualified in the top 10. Austin Cindric earned the fifth starting spot, followed by Kyle Larson in the fastest Chevrolet (178.367 mph) and Ford driver Joey Logano.

Non-playoff driver Austin Dillon will start eighth, followed by playoff drivers William Byron and Chase Briscoe.

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Notably absent from the final round were Toyota drivers. Of the five playoff drivers in Camrys, Ty Gibbs was the top qualifier in 20th. Martin Truex Jr. will start 22nd, Tyler Reddick 23rd, Christopher Bell 26th and Denny Hamlin 38th.

Hamlin was more than two seconds off the pole-winning pace in the first round with what appeared to be an engine issue.

“The engine made a funny noise when we were warning it up on pit road,” Hamlin radioed to his crew.

“They see a few red flags certainly, so they’ll dig into it tonight and get it fixed for tomorrow,” Hamlin told NBC Sports. “It means we start last and then we’ll just battle to the front. Our Mavis Camry I’m sure is going to be pretty good tomorrow. We feel good about what we brought. It’s just, we’ve got to get it to the finish.”

Other playoff drivers qualified as follows: Alex Bowman 11th, Harrison Burton 12th, Chase Elliott 16th, Brad Keselowski 19th and defending race winner Daniel Suárez 30th.

Contributing: Staff reports