McDowell wins pole for Cup Series at Daytona
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — It’s a Front Row front row at Daytona International Speedway.
Michael McDowell won the pole for Saturday night’s 400-mile race at Daytona, edging Front Row Motorsports teammate Todd Gilliland in qualifying Friday.
McDowell reached a top speed of 183.165 mph around the 2 1/2-mile superspeedway, nearly four-tenths faster than Gilliland. With McDowell and Gilliland atop the speed chart, Ford garnered the top six spots in qualifying and seven of the top 10.
Joey Logano was third for Team Penske, followed by Ryan Preece, Josh Berry and Chase Briscoe of Stewart-Haas Racing.
Wiliam Byron was the fastest Chevrolet in seventh. Austin Cindric, Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott rounded out the top 10.
It was McDowell’s fourth career pole, all this season. He previously started up front at Atlanta Motor Speedway, at Talladega Superspeedway and at Gateway Motorsports Park. He failed to win any of those.
McDowell has two wins in 489 career Cup Series starts, including the 2021 Daytona 500. He took advantage of Logano and Brad Keselowski wrecking on the final lap that year for his first career victory.
He has eight top-10s in 26 starts at Daytona.
“For whatever reason, this place has been good to me in that sense of feeling the pack, feeling when things are going to happen, putting yourself in a good position,” McDowell said.
Superspeedways weren’t always his specialty, though.
“It’s different than anything else that we do or anything else that you’ve ever done in your career getting to this point,” McDowell said. “I remember the first superspeedway race I did. We were four wide on the backstraight at Talladega and I was running probably 25th, and I was like, ‘This is the dumbest thing ever.’
“I mean, what are we doing? You can’t go anywhere. You’re locked in the middle. One guy makes one wrong move and we’re all piled up in a ball. This is not racing. That’s kind of my first year. Once I’ve learned to embrace it and enjoy it and become a student of it, it’s really helped me.
“Now I come here optimistic, and when I drive through the tunnel, I think we have a better shot than most to win this race.”
McDowell currently ranks 21st in the Cup standings, 157 points behind Ross Chastain for the 16th and final playoff spot. McDowell has to win one of the two remaining regular-season races – at Daytona and Darlington – to reach the playoffs for the third time in the past five years.
McDowell has signed to race for Spire Motorsports next season after Front Row owner Bob Jenkins decided to go in a different direction. McDowell credits Jenkins with turning him from “a guy that was running 30th every weekend” to winning the Daytona 500 and a race at Indianapolis last year.
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez, like all football coaches, wants his players to show up on time, work hard and play their best.
Oh, and another thing: Don’t dance on TikTok.
“They’re going to be on it, so I’m not banning them from it,” he said Monday. “I’m just banning them from dancing on it. It’s like, look, we try to have a hard edge or whatever, and you’re in there in your tights dancing on TikTok, ain’t quite the image of our program that I want.”
Making TikTok dance videos is a popular activity among high school- and college-age users of the social media platform. Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter, Boise State star Ashton Jeanty and Nebraska’s Dylan Raiola are among college football players who have posted dance videos.
Rodriguez is beginning his second stint as Mountaineers coach. He said he has talked to his players about the tendency in society to emphasize the individual rather than the team and that banning TikTok dancing is something he can do to put the focus where he thinks it belongs.
“I’m allowed to do that. I can have rules,” he said. “Twenty years from now, if they want to be sitting in their pajamas in the basement eating Cheetos and watching TikTok or whatever the hell, they can go at it, smoking cannabis, whatever. Knock yourself out.”
As for now, he said: “I hope our focus can be on winning football games. How about let’s win the football game and not worry about winning the TikTok?”
Dallas Stars forward Roope Hintz will be sidelined for a week with a facial injury but avoided a fracture.
General manager Jim Nill said Tuesday that Hintz has to keep his heart rate down for 5-7 days to avoid pressure or swelling.
Hintz, 28, was struck in the face by a puck midway through the second period in Saturday’s 5-4 loss at Edmonton. He did not return.
Hintz is tied for second on the Stars in goals (25) and is fourth in points (52) through 59 games this season.
He has 362 points (172 goals, 190 assists) in 451 career games in seven NHL seasons. Dallas drafted him in the second round in 2015.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports11 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway