Michael McDowell Seeks Redemption at Texas Where Career Highs, Lows Collide

FORT WORTH, Texas -- If there's any track that could sum up Michael McDowell's NASCAR career to this point, it may be Texas Motor Speedway.

While the track has changed and been through many configurations over the years, it still holds many moments.

McDowell has two of them: In 2008, when he violently crashed and flipped in turn one and walked away; and last year, when he was a few laps away from winning.

Last year, with 46 laps to go, crew chief Travis Peterson made a two-tire call that moved McDowell from 17th to restarting on the front row with Kyle Larson twice.

Although Larson had led the most laps all day, McDowell figured him out quickly.

"He sort of had done the same thing twice and I sort of figured out the timing of how he was doing it and what he was doing," McDowell said.

On the third restart against Larson, with 23 laps to go, McDowell passed him before they reached the start-finish line and built up a solid lead.

"Honestly, the way that it was playing out, I think we were going to be in a good spot had that caution not come out [two laps later]," McDowell recalled.

That caution set up a restart where McDowell edged out Ryan Blaney at the time of yet another caution. That set up McDowell's fifth restart on the front row and his second with Blaney, who initially grabbed the lead but couldn't hold it.

With less than 10 laps to go, McDowell was pulling away from Blaney who lost second to Joey Logano. Lap by lap after that, Logano reeled in McDowell with a bigger and bigger run off of turn two. 

Despite a valiant effort to block Logano, McDowell lost the lead and fell to third as Blaney also passed him with now three laps to go.

"Then, honestly, for me, I just got into an awkward aero situation behind the 12 [Blaney]. He had cleared me and then slid up. When he slid up, I just caught his wake at the right, wrong time off of two. That was kind of a situation that I wasn't expecting," McDowell said.

McDowell slid and hit the outside wall. He finished 26th, out of the race.

"It's unfortunate. We were two laps away from a third-place finish and got nothing for it," McDowell said. "At the same time, Carson [Hocevar, teammate] qualified on the pole, we qualified fifth, had really good speed all weekend long and that's good for us to come back and build on."

Spire Motorsports, as a whole, is building on the biggest weekend of its existence. They earned their first non-rain-shortened Cup win and jumped to eighth in the points standings, now 70 points above the Chase cutline, with Hocevar and the No. 77 team.

A dream weekend for the No. 77 team was a nightmare for McDowell's No. 71 team. Two crashes in a row dropped him to 32nd-place at the finish.

Entering Texas, they're now 23rd in the standings, 47 points below the Chase cutline – thanks to finishes of 26th, 20th, 18th, 24th, 34th and 32nd in recent races.

"It's been a tough month for the 71 group," McDowell said. "Obviously, we're coming off a big win for Spire Motorsports but for the 71 group, we just had some misfortune... some missed opportunities and execution. In NASCAR in particular, there's a lot of highs and lows and we just got to get out of this funk that we're in right now.

"We have three or four weeks in front of us that we can turn things around and get some momentum back on our side."

First up, McDowell will go for Texas-sized redemption with a very fitting paint scheme.

"It is cool. It's very patriotic, very American, kind of like Daytona. You know, it's a different paint scheme on the Modo Casino car... It's very Texas," McDowell said.

Then, there's Watkins Glen where he has either started or finished inside the top-10 in every NextGen race there so far.

After the All-Star Race at Dover Motor Speedway, there's Charlotte Motor Speedway. McDowell has either started or finished in the top-10 in all but three of the four NextGen editions of the Coca-Cola 600, including a seventh-place finish last year. 

Then, the summer looks promising with more road course races before the Chase.

But, it all starts with qualifying well at Texas, which may be a challenge after the poor finish at Talladega.

"Going out in the first seven cars is not ideal for a qualifying session," McDowell said. "We're going to have to execute that perfectly to even start in the top 20, right? Like, we got to have a perfect day to even start in the top 20 and then just kind of crawl our way from there."

Remembering last year, McDowell said pit strategy will help to get them through the field. He can also lean on his teammates who have run well recently.

But that is also a double-edged sword for McDowell as he sits nine spots lower in points than Daniel Suarez, his next-highest-ranked teammate in the standings.

"It's good, because you have a baseline, right? You know that the cars are capable and the team's capable and all those things. But you know when you're the odd man out and not getting the results, it's definitely challenging, right?" McDowell said.

While his teammates have improved their average finish and points position this season, McDowell's average finish is down from 18.7 to 21.0 and he is three positions lower in the standings. 

"We're struggling this year and you start to evaluate everything and you start to overthink it," he said. "It's not time for panic for us. Our cars have speed, our team's doing a good job. We just have to get back on track."

Getting back on track means considering the highs and lows of the sport he's experienced in the sport. Having his family around helps too and they get their fill of the thrill away from the track, riding motorcycles and go-karts.

However, none of his kids have thought about launching their own racing career -- partly because Dad is still carving out his own, with no end in sight.

"It's hard for me because I'm still trying to make a career out of it. I don't feel like I have the time or just the means to do that for them. Maybe 10 years from now, I would but right now, I'm all in trying to stay alive myself here," McDowell said.

Racing is often described as a business that runs on the principle of, "What have you done for me lately?" With two younger teammates outpacing McDowell so far this season, performing well each week means chasing away murmurs about "retirement" that often surround drivers after they turn 40 years old.

"As long as I'm able to do that, still love it and am passionate about it and providing value to the race team and to our partners, I want to keep doing it. There'll come a time when that isn't the case, right? And there'll come a time where there might be other opportunities. I'm just not there yet... I still feel like I have a lot to prove and a lot of racing left in me," McDowell said.

While retirement isn't on the horizon, McDowell joked "I got to turn the ship around or they're going to put me in the forced retirement." 

If there's anyone who will keep him from that, it's crew chief Travis Peterson. Now in their fifth season together, spanning two teams, they get each other well.

"I think that one of the things that's made us so good is that we're very honest and transparent," McDowell said. "So I think him and I both are fairly straightforward. There's not a lot of hurt feelings... We just look at it very analytically and say, 'This is not where we want to be and we got to figure it out.' We lean in and figure it out."

For 18 years, McDowell has popped up on promos and highlight reels for Texas, almost ad nauseam. All the while, he was creating his own highlight reel -- of a driver who survived start-and-parking to advance to opportunities in the 2010s that he parlayed into becoming a contender for wins he's earned in the 2020s.

In a way, it all comes back to Texas Motor Speedway.

"So much has changed and so much has evolved, but, I mean to me, it's one of those things where I embrace Texas. I always have. It's not something that I've ever shied away from," McDowell said. "It's had good memories and bad memories but it's still a place I enjoy going to and it's a place that is a reminder of how much time I've had in the sport and the ups and downs and riding the highs and lows and the journey of it."

The journey takes McDowell and the NASCAR Cup Series back to Texas Motor Speedway for the Wurth 400 this Sunday. The green flag is set to fly at around 3:43 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90. 

(In the video above, McDowell also weighed in with some quick thoughts on the Cup drafting track package.)