McDowell earns 8th career Cup pole at Talladega
LINCOLN, Ala. — Michael McDowell earned his eighth career pole in the NASCAR Cup Series ahead of Sunday’s playoff race at Talladega Superspeedway.
McDowell paced the 2.66-mile superspeedway in 52.481 seconds. That was enough time for him to earn his second pole of the 2025 Cup Series season and the eighth of his career.
In 466 Cup starts before his first pole, in February 2024 race at Atlanta Motor Speedway, McDowell had never won a pole. Now, he has eight poles in the last 69 starts, including this weekend at Talladega.
Championship 4 hopeful Chase Briscoe fell just short of his eighth pole of 2025, pacing Talladega in 52.5 seconds. He is one pole away from becoming the 75th driver in series history to reach double-digit poles in their career (2,997 drivers have made at least one Cup start).
Briscoe is one of three playoff drivers starting in the top 10:
TOP 10 STARTERS: Michael McDowell, Chase Briscoe, Kyle Busch, Austin Cindric, Ryan Preece, Josh Berry, Christopher Bell, Ryan Blaney, Riley Herbst, Bubba Wallace.
Among the playoff drivers who are still looking to lock into the Championship 4, William Byron starts 13th, Joey Logano starts 16th, Kyle Larson starts 19th and Chase Elliott starts 25th. Las Vegas winner Denny Hamlin starts 17th.
Last year’s fall Talladega winner, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., starts 37th of the 40 starters.
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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