Front Row finally sweeps the front row in qualifying
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Finally, Front Row Motorsports has lived up to its name.
Sweeping the front row for Front Row are Michael McDowell and Todd Gilliland. They’ll lead the field to the green flag for the NASCAR Cup Series’ Coke Zero Sugar 400 this Saturday night at Daytona International Speedway.
Earlier this season, McDowell earned his first career pole in February at Atlanta, ending a 466-race streak without a pole in his NASCAR Cup Series career. In the 24 races since then, McDowell has that pole plus poles for the races at Talladega in April, WWT Raceway in June and Daytona come Saturday night.
With the pole for Saturday night, McDowell now has won three consecutive poles on drafting tracks.
While he was happy to keep the streak going, he felt for Gilliland.
“I feel for Todd. I know he wanted his first pole so bad and we gotta share the love, but I’m proud to sit on the front row,” McDowell said.
Gilliland wanted it bad too.
“I wanted it extremely bad. It’s been tough, Michael’s got the last three poles on superspeedways. We’ve been incredibly fast and that’s something to celebrate, though,” Gilliland said.
TOP-10 STARTERS: McDowell, Gilliland, Joey Logano, Ryan Preece, Josh Berry, Chase Briscoe, William Byron, Austin Cindric, Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott
Seven of the top-8 starters belong to Ford. Including Brad Keselowski, Chris Buescher, Ryan Blaney and Noah Gragson in 12th-15th respectively, 11 of top-15 starters belong to Ford.
In fact, Ford only has Harrison Burton (20th), Cody Ware (33rd) and Justin Haley (36th) starting outside of the top-15.
FULL LINEUP:
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Jonathan Fjeld View All
Jonathan Fjeld is the co-owner of the The Racing Experts, LLC. He has been with TRE since 2010.
A Twin Valley, MN, native, Fjeld became a motorsports fan at just three years old (first race was the 2002 Pennsylvania 500). He worked as a contributor and writer for TRE from 2010-18. Since then, he has stepped up and covered 24 NASCAR race weekends and taken on a larger role with TRE. He became the co-owner and managing editor in 2023 and has guided the site to massive growth in that time.
Fjeld has covered a wide array of stories and moments over the years, including Kevin Harvick's final Cup Series season, the first NASCAR national series disqualification in over 50 years, Shane van Gisbergen's stunning win in Chicago and the first Cup Series race at Road America in 66 years – as well as up-and-coming drivers' stories and stories from inside the sport, like the tech it takes for Hendrick Motorsports to remain a top-tier team.
Currently, he resides in Albuquerque, N.M., where he works for KOB 4, an NBC station. He works as a digital producer and does on-air reports. He loves spending time with friends and family, playing and listening to music, exploring new places, being outdoors, reading books and writing among other activities. You can email him at fjeldjonathan@gmail.com