Michael McDowell masterful in Indianapolis

When Michael McDowell scored his first career NASCAR Cup Series win at the 2021 Daytona 500, it came after slipping through a massive wreck on the final lap and holding a narrow advantage over Chase Elliott when the caution came out. Over two years later, McDowell beat Elliott and the field on raw speed alone as he navigated Indianapolis Motor Speedway‘s infield road course at a blistering pace to clinch a playoff spot.

McDowell led a race-high 54 of 82 laps, beginning the day with his maiden stage victory followed by runner-up in Stage #2 to Denny Hamlin. With road courses not having cautions between stages and the race being clean for the most part, pit strategy played a major role as McDowell opted to pit fifteen laps before Hamlin which allowed him to cycle back into the lead after Hamlin made his stop.

Although Elliott tried to catch up, he could not get anywhere near McDowell’s #34. The win is Front Row Motorsports‘ fourth and second outside of a superspeedway, but the only other non-plate win (Pocono in 2016 with Chris Buescher) was due to the race being shortened by fog.

“To win the Daytona 500, there’s not a lot of things that can top that. But this is a close second, and to have my family here with me, it’s very special,” said McDowell. “Obviously they couldn’t be there at Daytona (due to COVID-19 policies), and that was tough. But at the same time, we’ve been building and building at Front Row Motorsports and felt like we would have another opportunity to win a race, and I’m not going to lie, we cherry pick as a family which races we go to. We go to the ones that we think we can win, and we talk about it. We do, we talk about it as a family, like all right, we’re all going to be there, this is the weekend.

“If it didn’t happen this weekend, we’d go to Watkins Glen and say, ‘Aright, guys, this is the weekend.’ To have it all come together, it’s super special.”

McDowell had been straddling the playoff cut line, holding the sixteenth and final playoff spot entering Indianapolis. Elliott needs a win to qualify as he missed seven races due to injury and suspension, leaving him too far back to make it on points with just two races remaining.

Fortunately for Elliott, he figures to be the favourite entering Watkins Glen as a two-time winner there and leads all active drivers in road course victories with seven.

“I lost too much ground under that pit cycle and was trying to pace myself for the long haul,” Elliott explained. “It kind of had that green flag feel. I thought I did that, just needed to do a better job getting through traffic there.”

Aided by the aforementioned lack of stage breaks and single-car spins not being enough to merit one, the only caution of the race came on lap three when Justin Haley was hit by Joey Logano and sent into the tyre barrier. The Cup Series’ last race with just a single yellow flag was at Fontana in 2012, which was shortened by rain, while the caution-free 2002 Talladega fall race ran in its entirety.

The late Marvin Burke remains the only driver with a perfect record in the Cup Series after Chicago winner Shane van Gisbergen finished tenth in his second career start. The finish came two days after finishing nineteenth in his maiden Truck race (he switched from Cup to Truck points for the start as Cup drivers cannot enter the latter’s playoff rounds).

His Supercars Championship rival and current points leader Brodie Kostecki was twenty-second after starting at the back due to a qualifying crash. 24 Hours of Le Mans winners Mike Rockenfeller and Kamui Kobayashi respectively placed twenty-fourth and thirty-third, the latter having been punted by Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in turn one. Jenson Button, who teamed up with Rockenfeller and his team owner Jimmie Johnson for NASCAR’s Le Mans entry in June, finished twenty-eighth; Button was also spun by Stenhouse, interestingly meaning the latter had taken out two Formula One alumni.

Race results