DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Michael McDowell may be the one Daytona 500 winner who doesn’t get much respect, but he has certainly earned his position on the “Front Row” for Sunday’s 66th Daytona 500.
The 2021 Daytona 500 winner scored his career-defining victory when NASCAR attendance was limited because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, because of rain, that year’s race ended in the darkness late on a Sunday night.
But the driver of the No. 34 Love’s Ford Mustang for Front Row Motorsports has more than proven that he is a worthy challenger to become the 13th driver to win multiple Daytona 500s.
McDowell locked himself into the outside of row one during Wednesday night’s single-lap qualifications. McDowell’s fastest lap in the second round of qualifications was 181.686 mph. The only driver to run a faster lap was pole winner Joey Logano, who cranked one out at 181.847 mph in the No. 22 Shell Pennzoil Ford for Team Penske.
McDowell started on the pole of Thursday night’s second Bluegreen Vacations Duel 2 at Daytona and led 17 laps in the 60-lap race. Late in the race, he got involved in a traffic jam with Denny Hamlin and decided to bail out and save his car for Sunday’s race as he is already locked into the front row.
Because of that wise decision, McDowell finished 16th — the last car to complete every lap.
“I will have to go back and watch but the 11 (Hamlin) threw a pretty good block there and I just didn’t want to wreck myself in the process,” McDowell explained. “Obviously we have a front row start. I wasn’t really anticipating him to throw it that early. I thought maybe two to go or one to go, but we were like four to go at that point.
“When I checked up a little bit not to blast him, the 2 got behind me a little bit and that got me sideways enough to get on that outside lane. Once I was the last man standing up there, I just rolled out knowing that we wanted to race for the win. We were racing for the win.
“But once we weren’t in position to race for the win, we needed to do everything we could to protect our Love’s Travel Stops Mustang Dark Horse. It drove well with a lot of speed. We had a shot at it, just didn’t get it done there at the end.”
McDowell’s Ford has shown speed in single laps and was fast in the race, so there is little reason to think that if the former Daytona 500 winner is able to avoid trouble, he can be a serious contender for the victory.
McDowell admitted he was surprised with his front row start, but crew chief Travis Peterson was confident it was one of the fastest cars at Daytona.
“We were actually joking a lot today because we put a lot of emphasis into having as much speed as we could build into our Daytona 500 car down here,” McDowell explained. “We always talk about it like, ‘Oh, yeah, we’ll see where we stack up.’
“Usually, we’ll even do a little whiteboard pick of where we think we’re going to qualify. Superspeedway qualifying typically hasn’t been a strength for us. We haven’t worried too much about it because our cars always race really well.
“But Travis was like, ‘This is everything I have. If we don’t qualify well today, I am done with superspeedway racing qualifying. I’m not putting any more effort into it anymore.’
“That just shows you the level of intensity that everybody at Front Row put into qualifying here, to having as much speed as we can, almost like we wanted to prove to ourselves if we really put our mind to it, can we do it.
“Obviously, these Mustangs are fast. To lock out the front row with two Ford Mustangs is great. Everybody at Roush Yates Engines shop, and all the things that it takes to make race cars go fast. But when it comes to the details the guys did at the shop, they did a good job.
“Cool moment. Cool for them to have that moment. Stinks that Joey beat us for the pole. But I’m super proud of the effort. It’s a cool experience for us to be in a spot that we’re not typically in.”
McDowell shouldn’t be surprised. After all, the team’s name is “Front Row Motorsports.”
So far at Daytona, it has lived up to that moniker.
“I am thrilled for the front row,” the driver said. “It would have been more fun to have the pole and get my first career pole in the Cup Series. But honestly, it’s such a cool accomplishment for our team that it doesn’t feel that disappointing, right, to not get the pole.
“The other side of it, too, which I didn’t realize, I should have paid more attention, but they’re like, ‘Oh, you got to go to victory lane.’ I said, ‘Victory lane, what do you mean? Victory lane. They bring the front row in there? You even get a trophy, right?’
“That’s pretty cool because normally in our sport it’s only the winner that gets a trophy, right? It was neat to see that. Makes it sting a little less, right? At least you got something to show for it.
“Like I said, I’m not disappointed. It would have been special and a little bit cooler, but I’m very proud of everybody at Front Row Motorsports, what they were able to do, how fast our car was.”
The preliminaries are over for the NASCAR Cup Series.
The big test is 500 frantic, chaotic and stunning miles in Sunday’s biggest race of the Cup Series season.
“There’s so much that can happen in a 500-mile race,” McDowell said. “We all know that. But we’ve also seen with this Next Gen car that track position is important, and it’s not always easy to get. It’s not easy to go from the back to the front.
“A couple guys have done it successfully. But it’s very tough to move from the back to the front just because the pack doesn’t build, the draft doesn’t build like it did with the older car. Also, guys with different strategies of saving fuel, pitting with your manufacturers, all that becomes very complicated when you’re trying to come through the pack.
“Being up front and trying to control your own destiny is important for this race, for all of it, but it’s not the end-all, be-all. We all know that, right? You can have maybe one or two little blemishes throughout the 500 and still be okay, it’s just harder now than it used to be. “