Majeski Defeats Cup Series Star Power For Daytona Truck Series Pole

Ty Majeski continued his superspeedway qualifying prowess with his third career NASCAR Craftsman Truck Seris pole at Daytona on Friday afternoon.

Ty Majeski rocketed to the pole position for the Fresh From Florida 250 at Daytona International Speedway. | Gavin Baker | NKP for Ford Racing

DAYTONA BEACH, Florida -- The fastest driver in round one of NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series qualifying? Ty Majeski. The fastest driver in round two? Ty Majeski. That's right, Ty Majeski will lead the field to green in his first race behind the wheel of the flagship No. 88 ThorSport Racing Ford F-150.

Majeski, the 2024 series champion, secured the pole position with a lap time of 50.881 seconds (176.883 mph). Majeski was the final driver to go on track in the final round of the session, and he was able to bump 2021 Daytona 500 champion and full-time Spire Motorsports NASCAR Cup Series driver Michael McDowell from the pole position by a margin of 0.058 seconds.

The pole is the 12th of Majeski's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series career, and it's his third career Truck Series pole at Daytona, and it comes in his 115th career start. According to NASCAR Insights, Majeski is the first Truck Series driver to ever claim three drafting track pole positions.

McDowell, making just his fifth career NASCAR Truck Series start, is seeking his first career top-10 finish in the series. If McDowell can score the victory, he will pull off the rare NASCAR National Series career trifecta as a winner in the NASCAR Cup Series, O'Reilly Auto Parts Series, and Craftsman Truck Series.

Tanner Gray, driving the No. 15 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro for TRICON Garage, will start Friday night's race from the third starting spot, while Carson Hocevar and Grant Enfinger rounded out the top-five fastest in the final round of qualifying.

Tyker Ankrum, Kaden Honeycutt, Jake Garcia, Gio Ruggiero, and Chandler Smith also polished off top-10 starting spots.

Narrowly missing the final round of qualifying were the sleeveless shirt-wearing Cleetus McFarland and Travis Pastrana. The two drivers, piloting Chevrolet Silverados for Niece Motorsports in this event, will start from the 12th and 13th spots, respectively.

This race will mark McFarland's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series debut.

Related: Pastrana, McFarland Approach Daytona With Biffle And Winning On Minds

Tony Stewart, making his first-ever NASCAR Truck Series start at Daytona International Speedway, will roll off of pit road in the 15th position on Friday evening, and he was the highest-qualifying of the five Kaulig Racing Ram Truck entries in the field.

Justin Haley was 16th in the No. 16 Ram Truck, while Brenden Queen (No. 12 Ram Truck) was 22nd, and Daniel Dye (No. 10 Ram Truck) was 31st.

Mini Tyrrell, driving the No. 14 Kaulig Racing Ram 1500, made the field as a 37th qualifier with the OEM Provisional. NASCAR had created four new provisional positions reserved for new OEM entries for the first three races of the season. It looked for a portion of Friday's qualifying session that Ram wouldn't need to use one, but Tyrrell's lap time was not able to squeak into the 36-truck field without the use of the provisional.

Drivers failing to qualify for Friday's race include Bryan Dauzat, Timmy Hill, Justin Carroll, Tyler Tomassi, Norm Benning, Toni Breidinger and Greg Van Alst.

2026 Fresh From Florida 250 Starting Lineup

Pos	Car	Driver	Lap Time
1	88	Ty Majeski	50.881
2	7	Michael McDowell (i)	50.939
3	15	Tanner Gray	51.074
4	77	Carson Hocevar (i)	51.112
5	9	Grant Enfinger	51.168
6	18	Tyler Ankrum	51.177
7	11	Kaden Honeycutt	51.229
8	98	Jake Garcia	51.264
9	17	Gio Ruggiero	51.285
10	38	Chandler Smith	51.317
11	91	Christian Eckes	51.455
12	4	Cleetus McFarland	51.459
13	42	Travis Pastrana	51.488
14	1	Taylor Gray (i)	51.508
15	25	Tony Stewart	51.519
16	16	Justin Haley	51.544
17	95	Clay Greenfield	51.558
18	75	Corey LaJoie	51.559
19	62	John Hunter Nemechek (i)	51.586
20	26	Dawson Sutton	51.607
21	97	Jason Kitzmiller	51.611
22	12	Brenden Queen #	51.614
23	13	Cole Butcher #	51.643
24	52	Stewart Friesen	51.664
25	5	Nick Leitz	51.674
26	81	Kris Wright	51.714
27	99	Ben Rhodes	51.719
28	44	Andres Perez de Lara	51.751
29	22	Josh Reaume	51.752
30	45	Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (i)	51.786
31	10	Daniel Dye	51.789
32	19	Daniel Hemric	51.861
33	33	Frankie Muniz	51.863
34	76	Spencer Boyd	51.875
35	34	Layne Riggs	51.995
36	2	Jason White	52.022
37	14	Mini Tyrrell #	51.810

Failed to Qualify: No. 6 Norm Benning, No. 27 Toni Breidinger, No. 28 Bryan Dauzat, No. 35 Greg Van Alst, No. 56 Timmy Hill, No. 69 Tyler Tomassi, No. 90 Justin Carroll.