After tallying six NASCAR Cup Series pole positions last year with Front Row Motorsports, Michael McDowell snagged his first pole with Spire Motorsports on Saturday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
It was Spire’s first pole as an organization in the Cup Series as McDowell led the way with a fastest speed of 186.961 mph.
“Yeah, it’s cool. It’s great. I mean, it’s a lot of fun to come here and have a shot at being at the pole and executing everything perfectly, which is really tough in our sport,” McDowell said. “You have to hit everything perfectly. You guys saw how tight the times were. You know, one little mistake and that’s it. I’m proud of the effort that goes into making these cars fast. I think that one of the funny things that my crew chief, Travis Peterson, said like — you know, we got a pole at Gateway. We got obviously a lot of poles at the superspeedway’s.
“And then we got a pole in a mile-and-a-half. The only place I haven’t got a pole is a road course, which that’s supposed to be my thing, you know? We’ve been close. Hopefully this will be the year, right, that we can go get a pole at a road course as well and try to close out all types of tracks. But poles are fun and it is fun. Today will be great and everybody’s going to go to the hotel; be excited and be pumped up for tomorrow.
“But wins are what matter, right? And so tomorrow’s what matters. And so, you know, it’s a much tougher challenge to go win that race tomorrow, but that’s the goal. And I think we’ll have a race car to contend.”
He out-paced Team Penske’s Joey Logano by 0.015 seconds. Behind the front row, Austin Cindric qualified third while Kyle Busch and Erik Jones rounded out the top five.
A trio of Hendrick Motorsports drivers in Alex Bowman (sixth), William Byron (eighth) and Kyle Larson (10th) reached the top 10.
After a stellar weekend at Phoenix Raceway which saw him finish fourth, Josh Berry qualified his Wood Brothers Racing Ford in seventh. Zane Smith (ninth) completed the top-10 starters.
Gunning for his fourth straight Cup Series victory, Christopher Bell qualified 13th, the fastest Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
Notably, Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney was unable to attempt a qualifying run due to a blow right rear tire during practice. Blaney’s No. 12 team will repair his primary car. He starts 36th.
