LONG POND, Pa: There is no hiding around the fact that Michael McDowell has certainly made noise in the NASCAR Cup Series this season.
From opening the season with an impressive seventh-place finish in the Daytona 500 to Sunday’s sixth-place run in the M&M’s Fan Appreciation 400 at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway, McDowell and his Front Row Motorsports team have adapted well to the NextGen car and it’s allowing the former Daytona 500 to enjoy a banner year in the sport.
For a while, it did not appear that McDowell would even have a chance at his eighth top-10 finish of the year. On Lap 45 of 160, McDowell was involved in an incident with Corey LaJoie in Turn 1 that caused slight right-side damage to his No. 34 Fr8Auctions.com Ford.
McDowell recovered though and with the leadership of crew chief, Blake Harris over the next 110 laps or so was able to bounce back and find himself battling the heavier funded cars of Kyle Larson, Martin Truex Jr. and Bubba Wallace for a finish inside the top-10.
Larson took seventh from McDowell over the final 10 laps of the race, but McDowell was able to keep Truex and Wallace at bay, collecting his first top-10 since finishing eighth earlier this month on the Road America Road Course.
Following NASCAR Cup Series post-race inspection at Pocono, the top two cars of Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch were disqualified for issues with the front fascias of their race cars moving McDowell from eighth to sixth in the running order.
“It was a good day,” said McDowell after the race. “I had a couple good restarts that got us track position, then I had one really bad one where we got hit in the left rear and about spun out and went back to last. That hurt us really bad. My guys called a good race and we tried some different strategies to try to get track position.”
McDowell was surprised that his strategy of fuel only and old tires was able to take what he thought would be an acceptable finish to a good finish for his Front Row Motorsports team.
“We stayed out on old tires, but I felt like if I got a good restart and got into the top 10 I could hold on,” McDowell explained. “We restarted 16th with no tires and drove up to eighth so I am really proud of that finish.”
With the Cup Series Playoffs on the horizon, McDowell knows that nothing, but a win would surge his Bob Jenkins into becoming Playoff eligible for the second consecutive year, but he’s taking the solid finishes in stride and believing that his team in inching closer to celebrating again in Victory Lane.
“It is still not the day you want,” sounded McDowell. “You don’t want to be eighth, you want to win the race, but we are doing a great job and I feel like we are getting close.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
