Top Dog: Michael McDowell
If you look down the list of Sonoma winners, most of them in the past decade have been expected victors. Kyle Larson, Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch and several other perennial contenders have graced the victory lane of Sonoma Raceway.
That was not the theme of this year’s Toyota Save Mart 350 at Sonoma (June 12). A former underdog (Daniel Suarez) collected his first career win, a Roush driver arguably had his best race (Chris Buescher) and one of the sport’s veteran underdogs rounded out the podium in Michael McDowell.
The importance of track position emphasized the value of having a clean weekend overall. McDowell started it off in the right direction by qualifying on row two in the fourth position; but he did not stop there.
The No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops Ford came within striking distance of the lead and potentially the win at several moments of the 90-lap event. McDowell and crew chief Blake Harris’s main concern was their race trim. The short run was effective, but the pace of a long run had the team skeptical.
Instead, McDowell’s strong spring and summer continued with a top-five finish. Harris opted to pit McDowell before the conclusion of both stages in order to better their chance at victory in the long run. While McDowell only earned two stage points, the strategy nearly played off in a big way.
Several teams and owners were likely grabbing their calculators and checking their calendars for the rest of the regular season due to playoff implications at the top of the board. For the majority of the final stage it was the following running order: Suarez, Buescher, Harvick, McDowell and Brad Keselowski. See the theme there? All five of those drivers were outside of the cut line entering Sonoma. Add in Ryan Blaney, who is still searching for his first win of 2022, and the playoff picture was beginning to get murky.
McDowell piloted his Ford in the fourth position up until his final pit stop. During…
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