If you mentioned the name Michael McDowell to a NASCAR fan today, thoughts will likely flash to last year’s Daytona 500, where McDowell quite literally went through the fire to earn his first Cup Series triumph.
The win locked McDowell into the playoffs for the first time in his career, and he saw career highs in several statistical categories throughout the rest of the season. However, the 2022 season is where you need to keep an eye on McDowell.
In the past nine races, he has only one finish outside the top 20 to go along with five top 10s. At Sonoma Raceway on June 12, McDowell finished third and was a contender for the win for the majority of the race. Through 17 races, McDowell has recorded a career-high six top 10s, which is tied for 12th in the series, and is averaging a 17.1 average finish, three spots higher than his career best.
McDowell caught up with Frontstretch prior to the Nashville Superspeedway race to discuss his recent surge, a potential playoff bid, improvements and communication at Front Row Motorsports, how faith helps his racing approach and much more.
Luken Glover, Frontstretch: You were in contention for the win at Sonoma and held off Kevin Harvick to finish in third. How big is it to compete for the win and be in contention for your group?
Michael McDowell: It was big in the total performance we’ve had at Front Row from start to finish of a weekend. Qualifying well in the top five, and then staying there all the race and having speed and really being in the top three most of the race, even at the beginning there.
So it’s definitely a big boost for us, but it’s also not an overnight success. I feel like we’ve been building all year and putting together some good results on the ovals and really everywhere. The last four or five weeks, we’ve really strung together some great results and finishes, and our cars have speed in them. I looked at Sonoma as, if you’re running 25th every weekend on an oval, going to a road course and winning it is a little bit out of reach. But when we’re running 10th every weekend, going to a road course and having a shot at winning isn’t out of reach. We sort of knew going into Sonoma that we’d have that shot, and just proud that we executed.
We needed a bit more to be able to be where we wanted to be, but you talked about Harvick — seeing that No. 4 behind me, that guy’s results at Sonoma are incredible. … What Harvick is good at is not making mistakes, making…
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