(Photo: Kyle Ritchie | The Podium Finish)
HAMPTON, Ga. — Michael McDowell and his No. 34 Front Row Motorsports team played their cards right as rain approached Atlanta Motor Speedway, stretching out fuel mileage to preserve a fourth-place finish in the shortened Quaker State 400 available at Walmart.
“I think we maximized what we could right there, but we were pretty close to winning the race, too,” McDowell said. “I’m a little bit disappointed that we couldn’t hold those guys off for a couple more laps … it was a bit of a wild race.”
Crew chief Travis Peterson called his driver to pit road on Lap 95 as storms were imminent and building to the west, but teams were unsure of when exactly the inclement weather would hit. Many teams believed it would be a race to halfway at Lap 130 or the end of Stage 2 at Lap 160.
Both points of the race, however, passed without any weather. McDowell, who suffered damage on pit road after hitting Martin Truex Jr. at the conclusion of Stage 1, bounced back to finish eighth in Stage 2. While fuel started to become a concern, the No. 34 team elected to stay out as long as possible.
On Lap 178, Ryan Preece and Bubba Wallace spun and brought out the caution. Had the race stayed green, McDowell otherwise would have needed to peel out of the pack and head toward pit road for service.
NASCAR paced for several laps with pit road closed, and finally, the rain hit and gradually picked up before NASCAR brought the field down pit road and called a red flag. Minutes later, NASCAR called the race and declared William Byron the winner.
McDowell, who ran fourth at the time, picked up his fourth top 10 in the last five races.
(Photo: Kevin Ritchie | The Podium Finish)
“I think Travis [Peterson] did a great job of maximizing our track position when we needed to,” McDowell said. “That pit road incident with Martin took us out of the track position we needed, so we had to get a little bit creative there. I’m thankful to be able to recover, but really wish I’d have held those guys off at the end. We had a shot on that restart, obviously, starting on the front row. I thought I executed the start pretty well, but just couldn’t quite get clear of AJ like I needed to, but it didn’t work out.
“I think the start of the race it was less like a restrictor plate. We were all sliding around pretty good. You’d go in the corner, you’d slide from the bottom to the top, but as the sun went down and the track cooled off it had more of that superspeedway feel, where you were pretty much wide-open and just trying to time those runs. It still races different than Talladega and Daytona, but it’s pretty close to superspeedways.”
With seven races remaining in the regular season, the 2021 Daytona 500 champion has pointed his way into 15th and onto the playoff grid, where he’s tied with Daniel Suarez for the final spot. They trail Ricky Stenhouse Jr. by 38 points for 14th.
McDowell’s top five is the eighth of his career and his fifth in the last three seasons. His last came in the 2022 fall race at Talladega Superspeedway, when he finished third.
