Michael McDowell shocks NASCAR Cup Series with playoff-altering win at Indy
Michael McDowell has pulled off the upset of the season — and he’s changed the complexion of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs in doing so.
The driver of the 34 car started fourth and led 50-plus laps to take home a victory on Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The win makes the Front Row Motorsports driver the 13th driver to clinch a postseason spot via race win, which means there are only three more slots in the 16-car playoff unaccounted for.
McDowell, in a few of his own words, did what he once only dreamed of doing.
And it couldn’t have come at a better time.
“Oh, man, this is such a dream come true,” McDowell told the NBC broadcast right after his celebratory burnout on the frontstretch. He added, “Man, we had a fast Ford Mustang. Everybody at Roush Yates’ engine shop, (shop president) Doug (Yates), these guys gave me everything today. We had the fastest car. We executed, and we did what we needed to do.
“Just so thankful, so thankful to still be grinding it out in the Cup Series, to put on a performance like that. I don’t know if it was dominant, but it felt pretty dominant to me.”
There were only 10 lead changes and seven different leaders on Sunday; the only other driver who led for double-digit laps besides McDowell was Christopher Bell (with 11 laps led).
The operable moment came early in Stage 3, when Daniel Suarez and McDowell were neck-and-neck entering pit road before Suarez’s team saw a slow pit stop let McDowell extend a lead he’d never relinquish.
To put this win in perspective, let’s briefly lay out McDowell’s career: The 38-year-old driver started in NASCAR in 2007 in the Truck Series and drove part-time for various low- to mid-level teams for a bulk of the next decade. He then got a full-time Cup ride in 2017 with Leavine Family Racing before getting replaced by Kasey Kahne and subsequently joining Front Row Motorsports in 2018.
He’s been with FRM ever since and has found ways to stay relevant and competitive even while greatly outresourced by the Joe Gibbs Racings and Hendrick Motorsportses of the NASCAR world.
McDowell finally broke through for his first Cup win during the 2021 Daytona 500 — on a superspeedway that has the tendency of seeing the underdog taking the win. He won it after sliding unscathed through explosions of chaos on the final lap.
And now, in 2023, after fighting to stay in the playoff hunt all season — he did something he’d never done before.
He not only won.
He not only won at a non-superspeedway racetrack.
He dominated at a road course — and a pretty prestigious one at that.
“It’s such a big deal,” McDowell said of winning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. “Winning the Daytona 500 was one of the coolest moments you could ever have, but going to Victory Lane without your family, that was tough.
“And so we cherry pick; my family comes to the races we think we can win. We thought we could win this one. Just so proud.”
Suarez, the race’s pole sitter, finished third. (“We win as a team, we lose as a team,” Suarez said of the aforementioned pit stop blunder post-race.)
Chase Elliott, the sport’s most popular driver who needs a win in the final two regular season races to have a spot in the playoffs, finished second.
“Just needed just a little bit more and came up a bit short,” Elliott said. “But congrats to Michael, man. He did a good job. Ran a great race and stayed mistake-free, and that’s what you’ve got to do to win.”
A quick look at the playoff picture
With McDowell’s win, that means that there are only three spots left up for grabs in the 16-car playoff field. A win gives you an automatic berth in the postseason; once those slots are accounted for, leaders in points take up the rest of the slots.
Kevin Harvick, who finished 23rd Sunday, likes where he’s at in the playoff picture, 145 points above the cut-line. Brad Keselowski (+143) and Bubba Wallace (+28) are right behind him and would make the playoffs if the regular season ended today.
In the final two regular-season races, there are really only two drivers who can point their way in: Suarez (28 points below the cut-line) and Ty Gibbs (49 points below the cut-line).
Two more observations from NASCAR race
▪ There was a bunch of pushing and shoving through the middle of the Cup field Sunday. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Jenson Button butted heads twice. Stenhouse and international racing superstar Kamui Kobayashi entangled as well — and so did Ryan Blaney and AJ Allmendinger, as well as Joey Logano and Justin Haley. Next week is another high-stakes regular-season road course race. Will we see some retribution there?
▪ The field was remarkably international on Sunday. Seven different countries were represented in the nationalities of the driver field. That’s five more than usual; Suarez was born in Mexico, and the rest of the full-time drivers are from the U.S. Here’s a look at how the non-regulars in the Cup Series fared on Sunday: Shane van Gisbergen (New Zealand, finished 10th), Brodie Kostecki (Australia, 22nd), Mike Rockenfeller (Germany, 24th), Jenson Button (UK, 28th) and Kamui Kobayashi (Japan, 28th).
This story was originally published August 13, 2023 at 5:58 PM.
