Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
NASCAR Media Zoom | Tuesday, September 14, 2021
Michael McDowell, driver of the No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops Ford Mustang, is in a must-win situation this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway as the first round of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs comes to an end. McDowell is currently 16th and 38 points behind the final transfer position as 12 drivers will advance following the race. McDowell spoke about his situation during a media call on Tuesday.
MICHAEL MCDOWELL, No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops Ford Mustang — WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE BRISTOL MOMENT AS A DRIVER AND A FAN? “As a fan, in 2008 my rookie year I didn’t get started until after the fifth race because Dale Jarrett ran the first five races because he had the champion’s provision, trying to get the car locked in the top 35 when you used to have to qualify for the races. Bristol was his farewell and was his last race, so as a fan, I was there in 2008 where the crowd was synced up Dale Jarrett signs and all this different stuff, so it was pretty cool just to see, one, the crowd there was incredible. It was sold out — every seat — but also just to see the farewell for Dale Jarrett was pretty cool.”
AND WHAT ABOUT AS A DRIVER? “As a driver, probably last year with the fall race we got a top 10. It was a special race for us because our owner, Bob Jenkins, and his family and his friends and his companies are there in Tennessee, so that’s a home race and there are always a lot of people. Typically in the playoffs, it’s tough when you’re outside of the playoffs just because of the fact that those top 16 teams are just locked and loaded and normally they occupy the front there, so to get a top 10 in a playoff race, even though we weren’t in the playoffs, for a hometown race for Bob Jenkins and all the companies there — MDS, it’s pretty special to do it in front of them.”
HAS NASCAR SAID ANYTHING TO DRIVERS ABOUT WHAT THEY MAY OR MAY NOT PUT DOWN ON THE RACING SURFACE THIS WEEKEND? “I haven’t heard officially. I haven’t talked to my team this morning. We talked about it yesterday and, for us, as of yesterday (Monday) we didn’t know for sure. It’s kind of changed a little bit because we sort of get a spreadsheet of, ‘Hey, these are the tracks that we’re gonna apply something. This is what we’re gonna apply.’ NASCAR kind of sends that to you just to allow the teams to have a little bit of a heads-up of what’s coming up, so a couple months ago it kind of laid out what Bristol would be, which is kind of the standard Bristol PJ1 on the bottom, but we’ve heard of late that that might change, so to answer your question honestly I don’t know. As of today I haven’t seen anything from NASCAR or from my team laying out what it’s gonna be like as far as the application goes this weekend.”
WHAT’S CLICKED FOR YOU AT BRISTOL THE LAST THREE VISITS? “I think that Bristol has always been a strong track for Front Row and for our alliance with Roush Fenway. Those have always been pretty strong tracks for us. For whatever reason, even with package changes and things like that, it’s seemed to fit our cars well. And even prior to those top 15s we had some really good runs at Bristol and got into an accident or something happens like that, so we’ve had speed there since I’ve been at Front Row and me prior to being at Front Row we’ve had speed there, so it’s a track in this first round of the playoffs is the one that we circled for our best — Bristol would be our best of Darlington, Richmond, Bristol, so we’re looking forward to this weekend. Obviously, we’ve dug ourselves a big hole, but Bristol has been a good track for us so we’ll see what we’ve got.”
WHAT WILL THE BIGGEST TAKEAWAY BE FOR YOU ABOUT THIS SEASON IF YOUR PLAYOFF RUN COMES TO AN END ON SATURDAY? “I kind of break it down into a couple different categories as far as how I’ll feel. Overall, this season has been great and, like you said, it’s been a career year for me and a career year for Front Row. We have more speed and more potential in our race cars and more top 10s and more top fives than we’ve ever had, so on the overall scale it’s been a great year. The playoffs has been really disappointing and what’s so disappointing about it, for me and for all of our guys, is that it’s been mistakes. It hasn’t been a lack of speed and my guys have done such a great job of getting prepared for the playoffs and we actually had good speed at Darlington and Richmond and we don’t have anything to show for it. We obviously crashed at Darlington and then had three pit road speeding penalties at Richmond that took us out of it, but feel like we had a 10th to 15th-place car at both of those racetracks, which is really good for us. So, I’m very disappointed in myself and I’m very disappointed on how these first two rounds of the playoffs have gone. The third part is that even if we are eliminated there’s still a lot to race for for us for the rest of the year, so we still want to finish strong. We want to beat cars that we can beat there in the points and finish out the season like we’d hoped to, so I’m optimistic about that because of the speed that we’ve had in our race cars, even though my execution has been really poor these last two races. It’s disappointing and super frustrating. We still have a lot of opportunities to get it right. We have some great tracks coming up and we still have a shot at Bristol, too. We just gotta go out there and see what happens.”
WHAT IS YOUR OVERRIDING FEELING THIS WEEKEND? WHAT IS YOUR TEAM’S MINDSET? “The mindset is the same as it was at Darlington and Richmond is we knew no matter what we were gonna have to put ourselves in position to have three incredible races and now that we’ve wasted two of them, we’ve got to have a really incredible race at Bristol. For me, it’s just about trying to win the race. If we’re in a position to do that, if we have the speed to do that, if the strategy works out to do that, we’re gonna do everything we can to put ourselves in that position, but at the same time if we’re running 20th all day and we don’t have a shot at winning the race, we need to get some momentum back and we need to get some solid finishes, so it’s really just going as hard as we can and being aggressive like we’ve been, but also just seeing how the race plays out. If I’m restarting with 10 laps to go and I’m in the top five, I’m gonna do everything in my power to make big, aggressive, bold moves to try to get yourself into a position to win, but if you’re running 20th with 15 to go, I’m gonna do everything I can to get 15th and get some momentum back so we can get back on track and start scoring some points because with a 37th at Darlington and a 28th at Richmond — and having an engine issue at Daytona — these 30-plus finishes have really hurt us these last few races for sure.”
HOW DO YOU MAKE SURE YOU DON’T OVERTHINK ANY GIVEN SITUATION? “Bristol makes it probably pretty easy for that, especially without qualifying and practice, so you have what you have. You don’t have an opportunity to overthink it and screw it up in that regard. And then usually strategy is pretty straightforward at Bristol. Very rarely are you making green flag stops, even though we did see it last year in the fall race, but typically there aren’t a whole lot of gambles that you have to take, so it’s a pretty straightforward race in that regard other than a lot of attrition and things happen quickly there. So, I don’t see it being one of those races where you have to overthink it and put yourself in a box. You just gotta have speed and you gotta have track position.”
WHY DO YOU FEEL WE’VE SEEN SO MANY MISTAKES AND ISSUES WITH PLAYOFF DRIVERS THESE FIRST TWO RACES? “I wish I knew. If you find the answer, let me know. I’m still going through that from myself. I haven’t felt like I’ve totally changed anything the last two weeks, but obviously I’ve made more mistakes. I don’t know if that’s the pressure of the playoffs or just the ramped up, extra push of effort and energy, or if it’s just the timing of how motorsports works sometimes. There was a point in the season where even when things would go wrong, you could overcome it and you felt like you couldn’t do anything wrong. And then there are parts in the season where you can’t get it put back together and like the last few weeks keep making mistakes, and different mistakes. It’s not the same mistake every time — something new pops up. It’s been wild. The last three weeks has just been one of those things where, for me, I haven’t had an engine failure on a very, very long time that wasn’t related to damage or debris coming through the grille or something like that. I can’t remember the last time I spun by myself without contact and end of the race, so that was a new one, and then to speed on your speeding penalties while serving your speeding penalties is a first for me, too. I don’t know if it’s the added pressure or the intensity or making mistakes and not overcoming it.”
DO YOU SEE THE TRACKS THEMSELVES BEING A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR? “Yeah, I think that’s the number one factor, honestly. Darlington is a track where it’s very easy to make mistakes. We see it a lot. It’s very easy to get in the wall. It’s very easy to make mistakes there. Darlington, Richmond and Bristol are among probably the hardest pit roads for us because the pit roads aren’t straight, they’re curved, and so any time you have curvatures in the pit road you’re adjusting your speed for those, so you’re going up and down on the speeds so it makes it easy to make mistakes and have penalties. Dover is a little bit like that, too. So, I think it is. I think it’s the type of tracks where mile-and-a-halves are a little bit more straightforward, where these tracks in particular are tough racetracks with a lot of tire fall off and a lot of long green flag runs, so there are more opportunities for mistakes I feel like.”
COMMENTS ON THE CHALLENGE OF PASSING WITH THIS PACKAGE. “It is tough when you have the top five cars that are pretty close in speed that clean air is a big deal, and on some of these tracks — not the ones that we just raced on — but on some of these tracks where the tire fall off isn’t as much, you don’t have that coming and going where you’ve got a guy that’s really good on a long run and is able to pass the leader. So, everybody is so good — spotters included and drivers of knowing where to position their car to take the air away from that second-place car that’s trying to make that pass and no different than kind of the blocking that we see at Daytona and things like that. You can stall out somebody’s run and you can put them in bad air, which makes it really challenging to pass, so I think it’s just inevitable in motorsports. It’s not just NASCAR. I feel like we have the most side-by-side and the most passing for leads, but in any form of motorsports when you have cars that are pretty equally matched and you have drivers that are at the very top of their game, it is difficult to make moves.”
WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO PEOPLE WHO SAY THIS PACKAGE PUTS LESS EMPHASIS ON DRIVE SKILL AND MORE ON RANDOM LUCK? “I don’t think it’s random luck and I think it’s still driver skill, but what the driver’s skill entails is different. To break it down would be this is that when we have low downforce and you’re slip sliding around, the driver is working really hard to make speed and to be fast. Right now, with as much downforce you’re not working as hard to be fast, but you have to work really hard to make passes and defend, and so the race craft it takes more talent right now with this package — the actual racing side of it — where the driving side of it was more challenging with the lower downforce, so I don’t know if that answered it. I know it sounds the same, but the cars are easier to drive by yourself right now, but harder to race so it still takes talent and it still takes ability to be up front and make it happen.”
