If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Or in Michael McDowell’s case, try again in three of the next eight races.
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The distinction of the three in eight is simple: McDowell is one of the best road course racers in NASCAR Cup. And with three of the next eight races being either a street course (Chicago) or road courses (Sonoma and Watkins Glen), McDowell hopes to make up for what he feels was somewhat of a missed opportunity on Sunday at the road course in Mexico City.
While the Phoenix, Arizona native did end up with a very good fifth-place finish south of the border, he also considered he came up shorter than he should have. With a few more breaks, McDowell could have earned a top-three finish and stood on NASCAR’s first-ever podium.
An unfortunate caution that came out just before he pitted in Stage 2 arguably cost McDowell a better chance of the win in Mexico. “We need a win, we know we need a win to get into the playoffs,” McDowell told Prime Sports after the race.
“Our (car) was real fast. We had an alternate strategy and without that caution, it would have worked out pretty well, I think. We passed a lot of cars at the end.
“Top five, I’m proud of that, but not what we came here to do, though. We’ll build on it and get ready for Chicago, Sonoma and good road courses coming up. But this is an opportunity I think we let slip away.”
But McDowell can’t feel too bad. His strong showing Sunday allowed him to jump five spots in the NASCAR Cup standings, going from 21st to 16th and put him above the playoff cutoff line with 10 races left to qualify for the playoffs.
And in much the same way as Sunday’s winner, Shane van Gisbergen, earned an automatic berth in the playoffs — even though SVG came into the race a dismal 33rd in the standings — McDowell could also punch his playoff ticket with a win in any of the three road course races coming up.
Sunday was McDowell’s best finish since joining Spire Motorsports at the beginning of the season after choosing not to renew his long-time agreement with Front Row Motorsports.
“Yeah, and we had the speed today,” he said. “I don’t know if it was race-winning speed, but it definitely was top two or top three.
“So that’s what we need to do to get in the playoffs, so I feel good about that. We’ll keep fighting hard, keep getting better and better and we’ll see what happens.”
McDowell has two career Cup victories, the 2021 Daytona 500 and the 2023 Indianapolis Grand Prix road course, before NASCAR moved back to the full Indianapolis Motor Speedway 2.5-mile oval.
And to extrapolate things even more, including the win at Indy, McDowell has one win and four top-five finishes in his last 10 road and street course races.
