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.
The Pittsburgh Steelers and safety DeShon Elliott have agreed to a two-year, $12.5 million extension with $9.21 million guaranteed, a source confirmed to ESPN.
Elliott, 28, was one of the Steelers’ best run defenders last year with 2 forced fumbles, 3 fumble recoveries, 4 tackles for loss and 108 combined tackles.
NFL Network first reported the deal.
A former sixth-round pick, Elliott spent his first four seasons in the league with the Baltimore Ravens and Detroit Lions before joining the Miami Dolphins for one year.
The Steelers signed Elliott as a free agent to a two-year deal before the 2024 season.
He has 395 tackles in 72 career games.
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Tisha Thompson
Ippei Mizuhara, the disgraced former interpreter for Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani, is in federal prison in Pennsylvania, a spokesperson for the Federal Bureau of Prisons told ESPN on Monday.
Mizuhara, 40, was ordered to surrender to federal authorities by Monday. He is in custody at Federal Correctional Institution Allenwood Low, a low-security facility, after being sentenced to 57 months in prison for stealing nearly $17 million from Ohtani.
Mizuhara was initially ordered to report to prison in March, but a federal judge granted the delay. The reasons for the delay remain under seal.
Mizuhara’s attorney declined ESPN’s request for comment, but previously stated that he expects Mizuhara, a Japanese citizen, to eventually be deported.
The Dodgers fired Mizuhara in March 2024 after an ESPN investigation revealed he sent millions in wire transfers from Ohtani’s account to an illegal bookmaker. He pleaded guilty to bank fraud and filing a false tax return in June 2024, admitting that he placed about 19,000 bets with the bookie over a two-year period and accumulated over $40 million in debt.
The bookmaker, Mathew Bowyer, pleaded guilty in August to running an illegal gambling business, money laundering and subscribing a false tax return. He is awaiting sentencing.
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