INDIANAPOLIS — For the time being, Michael McDowell holds a place in the history of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as the last NASCAR Cup Series driver to win on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course.
That came last year, before NASCAR and IMS decided to bring back the Brickyard 400 on its 30th anniversary with Sunday’s 400-mile race on the historic 2.5-mile oval.
McDowell started fourth and went on to dominate the 2023 Verizon 200 at the Brickyard, leading 54 laps in the 82-lap contest to defeat Chase Elliott of Hendrick Motorsports by .937 of a second on the 2.439-mile road course.
It was a day when the best driver and the best car won the race and that is a victory McDowell will long cherish.
It also brought him fame and glory like he had never experienced before in his racing career.
“It’s been fun this morning just driving in and seeing your big face on the side of the race track,” McDowell said. “I think we came up with a name for it, ‘Chick-fil-A Cheeks.’
“We were munching down some Chick-fil-A on the way in here.”
The chubby-cheeked McDowell was all smiles after that victory and recalled the tremendous sense of relief and accomplishment he felt that day after a hard-fought, but well-earned battle at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
“It’s cool to be able to come back and take it in a little bit, because the last time I was sitting in this media center there was so much adrenaline, so much going on through your mind, right?” he recalled. “It’s hard to really take in the moment because so much is happening.
“So even just walking back up here, it was just great memories of that day and what it meant. As you guys know, you go through an entire season, and you sometimes forget how special of an event that this is until you get here, and you see it and you look around and you walk through the garages.
“It’s been fun.”
McDowell is the most recent winner of a NASCAR Cup Series race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but he is not the most recent winner of the Brickyard 400.
That honor goes to Kevin Harvick, the now-retired NASCAR Cup Series champion who scored his third Brickyard 400 win in 2020. Because of the COVID pandemic, that year’s Brickyard was held in an empty Indianapolis Motor Speedway as spectators were not allowed into the facility.
It was also the last year NASCAR and IMS wanted to race on the oval. The two thought a switch to the IMS road course might spark interest in the event and create more action.
In 2021, A.J. Allmendinger won a wild race on the IMS Road Course. Tyler Reddick was the winner in 2022 and McDowell last year.
But it was nearly unanimous by the drivers that if NASCAR was going to race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, it should be on the famed oval.
McDowell can only dream of what it would feel like to be the winner on the IMS oval.
“It would be awesome,” he said. “I think that winning here is special.
“When you’re talking about the road courses versus the oval, the oval is prestigious. The Indy 500 and the Brickyard 400 are prestigious events. Not to say that the road course isn’t prestigious because absolutely, anytime that you win at Indy, it’s prestigious, but to do it on the traditional yard of bricks, going the right direction, I think would probably one up the road course victory.
“It’s one of the races that, people asked me this week and last week about how I feel about us coming back to the oval, right? It’s so hard to answer because if you asked me today, what would I rather do, I’d rather race the road course because I would say our probability of winning is probably higher.
“But as a fan and as somebody that appreciates the sport, I think we should be racing on the oval because of what it means and the history of it.
“That’s the best way that I could describe it.”
Allmendinger, Reddick and McDowell are the only drivers that have a chance to do both – win on the road course and the oval at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
“Eventually, somebody will, so you might as well be the first one,” McDowell said.
For a driver who wins a race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, it’s a career-defining accomplishment. But NASCAR Cup Series victories are among the hardest in all of sports because of the deep competition each driver faces in every race.
Sunday’s return to the Brickyard 400 will be one of those moments where it is man versus machine versus every other team in the race at one of the most historically challenging race courses on Earth.
“It’s very hard, this oval in particular, in our cars, you have to be perfect all day long,” McDowell explained. “You have to execute all day long. Track position is so important that to put together a race here at the Brickyard and to win would be something that would be a career moment, I think.
“Even though winning on the race course was as well, it would mean more for sure.”
The current Next Gen car used in Cup Series competition has a lot of characteristics of the IMSA Sports Car. It has better cornering capability and with the precision turns at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, how will that change the dynamic of this year’s Brickyard 400.
“That’s a great question and this car responds quicker,” McDowell told SPEED SPORT. “Everything about this car is quicker in response as far as the car doesn’t travel as much, the sidewalls not deflecting as much, and the steering, everything is more responsive and it’s more nimble as far as that goes.
“But we have less downforce now than we did in most of those years that we were here. So yes, it does respond quicker but you’re still taking a 4,000-pound heavy stock car that doesn’t have a lot of downforce.
“This is one of the tougher tracks for that. When you are in the car you don’t feel much banking at all here. It feels very flat and very fast getting into the corner.
“But what you said is right, this is a precision race track. When you make adjustments in the car, you are just trying to move three or four inches. You are not trying to move three or four feet. So here, I think it is going to be fun with this car because this car responds so well.
“So, you should be able to race and dice it up a little bit more.”
If McDowell is on the outside of another car entering turn 1 or turn 3, will he be able to make it stick to the outside, or will the car lose grip and slide back?
“I’ll let you know around lap 15,” he said. “We all are thinking the same thing. Anytime you come here, and I wasn’t at the test, but anytime you come here and test, or even in practice today, it’s going to be one lane. We know it’s going to be one particular line.
“But as we get restarts in and as we get racing side by side, the track takes rubber, and you normally can move around a little bit.
“I do think it will be the same. With the tires and the rubber that we’re putting down, I don’t see there being any trend with this NextGen car that would tell me that it’s going to be one lane versus when we were here last time, and we could run two lanes.
“The preferred lane is still going to be the bottom, but you should be able to go through the corner side by side. I do think it will take a little bit. It won’t happen today, right? I think by the time Xfinity races and lays rubber down and then we go out, it should be at a good spot.
“I hope.”