Front Row Goes Historic 1-2 in Daytona Qualifying, McDowell on Pole

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (August 23, 2024) - Front Row Motorsports on the front row. The team had a historic day in Friday's Coke Zero 400 qualifying with both cars capturing the front row for Saturday night's race. Michael McDowell earned his fourth career pole, fourth of the season, while Todd Gilliland qualified his career-best, second in the No. 38 Grillo's Pickles Ford Mustang Dark Horse.

"It was just a massive amount of time and energy by everybody at Front Row [improving our superspeedway cars]," McDowell said. "Kind of shortened up, we just kind of proved to ourselves that with a lot of extra, and when I say a lot I mean a lot of extra time that it matters and we just put that time in and it’s paid off."

It will be an all-Front Row Motorsports front row, thanks to McDowell’s qualifying lap of 183.165 mph around the 2.5-mile high banks in the No. 34 Long John Silver's Ford Mustang Dark Horse. The two actually posting the exact same time in the first round of qualifying. The duo had a previous best qualifying effort at Talladega where McDowell qualified on pole, Gilliland third.

"It's amazing effort by everyone at Front Row Motorsports, said Gilliland. "I think it was in Atlanta where we were fairly close to getting the front row, so just to be able to keep cranking out fast cars and capture the front row in Daytona is really impressive. Everybody on our car has stepped it up a lot. Michael (McDowell) is a tough one to beat. He’s been pushing us to new levels since I got to the Cup Series and we continue to do that. Second isn’t too bad and we’ll be on the front row and race him from there.”