Michael McDowell has been stingy with poles recently, earning his sixth pole of the 2024 season at Talladega Superspeedway – a category wherein he leads all drivers this 12 months. This is a big feat for a driver who failed to say a single pole position in the primary 15 years of his Cup profession.
There isn’t any reason to consider that success will end when the green flag is raised at 500 miles. McDowell is a really capable superspeedway racer and winner of the 2021 Daytona 500. Earlier this 12 months, he was just seconds away from winning at Talladega before an aggressive block resulted in him crashing into the skin wall.
“I thought about it a lot after the spring race,” McDowell admitted. “It's simply because you're all the time attempting to learn and learn and wonder, 'OK, what went right and what went unsuitable?' How else would you’re employed through it? How would you alter these moves? It's more analytical than simply saying, “Oh, don't skip to the last block.” It's a approach to do all of the things it’s worthwhile to do and still win the race. And you then just focus, concentrate and keep going.
“You progress quite quickly in our sport. You should learn it because in the event you don't, next week comes and you possibly can get into your head and each time that happens you possibly can lose momentum, good or bad, so try to maneuver quickly,” he said.
“I don't want to watch” replays of the Talladega defeat
As NASCAR's return to Talladega neared, replays of the dramatic finish that ended with McDowell on the wall, Corey LaJoie on the lid and Tyler Reddick in Victory Lane were throughout social media. The Front Row Motorsports driver deliberately avoids these clips because he doesn't need to dwell on them.
“As this race got closer, you could see everything on social media – on the last lap,” McDowell explained. “Every time I just don't let it get to the wreckage. I stop him. I just scroll up or left or right. I don't know what you call it, but it surely's because I don't need to see it. I don't need to see it since it's hard. This was my likelihood to win. This was our likelihood to win but it surely got out of hand watch this and the explanation I don't give it some thought is because I'm within the moment.
“Tomorrow is a brand new day, a brand new opportunity and we can have a likelihood to win the race. I'll take into consideration what I want to do to win the race tomorrow and take a look at to not focus an excessive amount of on what's happened recently Over time you learn from it and definitely, as I said right after, I've studied it intensely for hours and I've give you a game plan for what I might do otherwise, so we sort of have it closed and take a look at to maneuver on,” he said.
Spoiler for the playoffs because the departing FRM driver
McDowell missed out on making the playoffs, but now he has a chance to do something different – upset the playoffs. Chris Buescher did it together with his win at Watkins Glen, and Ross Chastain just denied William Byron an automatic promotion together with his win at Kansas.
This can be out of the ordinary for the No. 34 driver as his time with FRM is coming to an end and he plans to maneuver to Spire Motorsports for 2025.
“It would mean the world,” McDowell said when asked about one other win with this team. “I believe you've seen it within the desperate moves this season that I wouldn't normally make, just attempting to get this win because that is my last season with Front Row Motorsports. I owe loads to Bob Jenkins for turning my profession around from barely hanging on to winning races, taking pole positions and competing. Everything in me and on this 34-person team indicates that we wish to win before the top of the 12 months and now we have great opportunities to accomplish that. Today was the primary win we wanted to get pole position, and tomorrow we'll exit and take a look at to take the checkered flag.
Only five drivers in the sphere have made more Cup starts than McDowell has at Talladega, and he ought to be high on the list of any non-playoff drivers who can step into the race and steal the checkered flag on Sunday.
