DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.: Daytona 500 winner Michael McDowell didn’t score back-to-back NASCAR Cup Series victories during Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 253, but his eighth-place performance for Front Row Motorsports might as well felt like it on the Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway Road Course.
With his victory in the Great American Race, McDowell’s No. 34 FR8 Auctions Ford Mustang found himself on the outside pole for the second race of the season. Unfortunately, McDowell found trouble at the drop of the green flag.
As the cars screamed towards Turn 1, McDowell’s Ford went straight and off the track causing damage to the splitter of his automobile. Informing his team that he had a flat tire, McDowell found luck with an early race caution allowing him to stay on the lead lap and repair his car.
Returning to the race at the back of the pack, McDowell steadily and methodically moved himself through the field even after missing the chicane early in the race. And despite training fenders during Stage 3, McDowell was able to take advantage of a pair of late race cautions which allowed the Phoenix, Ariz. native to take advantage of track position, fresher tires and his road course skills to maneuver back inside the top-10 and claim eighth.
“That was way too much excitement for me,” said McDowell after the race. “The FR8 Auction Ford Mustang was actually really good. We had a flat tire there coming to the green. I knew something was wrong. I should have just pitted, so I screwed that up and that hurt us a little bit.”
“We lost track position and then missed the chicane. Pretty much everything that could go wrong went wrong today, but this is what our team is all about — Front Row Motorsports — we grind it out and we fought hard.
“We just kept the fight in it and ended up with another top 10, so pretty crazy how that all went down.”
Sunday’s race marked the first time in McDowell’s career that he scored back-to-back top-10 finishes in Cup Series competition, 359 races in all.
“It was another great run,” added McDowell. “I’m really excited to keep this momentum going. We’ve got to clean it up a little bit, but not a bad night altogether.”
McDowell, 36, heads to Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway sixth in points and looks to better his 10th place outing in 2016 driving for Leavine Family Racing.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
