DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — As the NASCAR Cup Series season kicks off in earnest with Sunday’s Daytona 500, there are many new driver and team combinations.
As one can imagine it is a significant adjustment for all parties involved.
Michael McDowell will drive for Spire Motorsports this season after spending the past seven campaigns with Front Row Motorsports.
“It’s nerve wracking and exciting all at the same time,” McDowell explained. “It’s a brand-new opportunity and there is so much in front of you that is new and it feels that way, right? You feel that optimism and you feel that energy of like wow, we are doing big things. But we haven’t done anything yet and that makes you nervous because you are like, we have to go perform now. And so that part of it has been fun and that is what I would say, it’s been fun.
“It has been fun to go through the process of how they do things, how they see things, and learn people’s names, who they are, and what they do.”
Justin Haley will team with McDowell at Spire Motorsports and has a similar feeling about the change.
“It’s nerve-racking and it’s exciting all at the same time. It’s a brand-new opportunity and there’s so much in front of you that is new,” Haley said. “It feels that way and you feel that optimism and you feel that energy of we’re doing big things though we haven’t done anything yet. So that makes you nervous that we have to go perform now. It’s been fun to go through the process of how they do things and how they see things and learn people’s names and learn what they do. It takes time.
“You can’t walk in day one and be clicking with everyone. The good thing is that there are a lot of familiar faces at Spire that I’ve worked with over my career at some point. It wasn’t totally daunting because I had those 10 or 20 faces that are familiar, and it’s cool to reconnect with people and have another shot at doing big things.”
Chase Briscoe is at Joe Gibbs Racing after four seasons with Stewart-Haas Racing.
“It’s a lot. I did not think it would be that different, truthfully,” Briscoe said. “I figured it would be pretty simple to just switch, and yeah, I was definitely wrong. There’s just so much more going on. The amount of data to look at; working with James (Small, crew chief). The other day, I was like 15 minutes late for this meeting that we had, and I’m not used to pre-event meetings.
“We’ve never done those before in my career, so there’s a lot different. Just everything that’s going on and the resources, data, analytics. There’s just so much that, honestly, has really opened my eyes up to this how vastly different is. It’s kind of crazy to think that’s what we’ve raced against my entire Cup career.”
Noah Gragson moves to Front Row Motorsports from Stewart-Haas.
“It’s been really smooth on my side of things. I know trying to get cars and haulers and all that stuff starting up a third team has been a little bit of a challenge for the team in itself, but for myself personally it’s been really, really smooth — much smoother than it’s ever been and a lot of that is I have the same crew chief so we’re already on the same page.
“We’ve worked with each other. When I get inside the race car all of my interior stuff, where the wheel is located, all the measurements, that’s all the same, so when I sat in the Bowman Gray car and went out for first practice, I feel like I didn’t even skip a beat from how we ended the season in Phoenix with how comfortable I was behind the wheel and what-not.”
