Michael McDowell did it. Michael McDowell won a Cup Series race. And it wasn’t just any Cup Series race. Michael McDowell won the Daytona 500.
It’s possible this differs, driver to driver, but my impression is that most NASCAR drivers would rather win the Daytona 500 than win the cup. So in this sense, Michael McDowell has reached the pinnacle of the sport to which he’s dedicated his life.
The immediacy of Wikipedia can be heartwarming at moments like this. I went on Michael McDowell’s page just now, looking for a quick overview of his general career trajectory (since mine is limited to “journeyman driver, horrible crash in qualifying at Texas once”), and at the beginning of his opening blurb, it says the following:
“He is best known as the champion of the 2021 Daytona 500”
That’s it. No period at the end. No citation yet. Just that, with the picture now McDowell celebrating, confetti raining down around him.
McDowell’s career path has been a quiet one. He’s run 358 Cup Series races now, but he only has 13 top tens to his name, and just the one win. His Xfinity Series career has never been noteworthy—he came up through open wheel and sportscar racing more than the NASCAR underbelly. He’s been in the 34 car for three-plus years now, but he’s just never been a factor. Front Row Motorsports is a have-not in the chartered team landscape. McDowell’s never drawn the faith of a bigtime team. His most notable moments haven’t been related to race contention, with the Texas qualifying crash in 2008 (a horrifying accident from which McDowell somehow emerged seemingly unscathed) the thing for which he’s been best-known.
Tonight, he’s a Daytona 500 champion. And for the rest of his life, he will remain so.
The Winner
We’ve talked about McDowell. He’s the story tonight. But there are others, and those will percolate out over the rest of the week, as the McDowell victory lap fades:
The Race
It was a weird day. Things started out hot, with some competitive racing and a massive wreck on Lap 14, but rain came in immediately thereafter and caused something like a six-hour delay. When the race resumed, there was a lot of carnage to attend to (teams can’t work on cars during delays), followed by hours of single-file driving as the race became a waiting game until the final lap.
The first wreck—the big one—happened when Christopher Bell, racing hard early, got into Aric Almirola, turning him towards the wall and into the path of Alex Bowman. This happened at the front of the field, and most of those behind were unable to get through untouched, with the muddy infield causing further damage as drivers who’d have skated through on a dry day found their rides destroyed in the divots.
After the wreck, and after the rain delay, the attempts to salvage cars were rapid, with some of those who didn’t give up coming out tattered. The most noteworthy of those tattered was William Byron, whose quarterpanel flew off and appeared to go under Quin Houff’s tire, which soon flattened, collecting Houff and Chase Briscoe. This wreck was not Houff’s fault. But to be fair to the many of us who assumed it was, Houff did go through a DO NOT ENTER gate during practice this week.
From there, it was the Denny Hamlin show for a long time, with a brief interlude when Kaz Grala’s right rear tire caught fire, and I mean significant fire (video below). Hamlin won both of the first two stages, passing Bubba Wallace to win the second while Wallace and McDowell both made strong saves in traffic. But green flag pit stops during the final stage left Hamlin midway through those on the lead lap, leading Joey Logano to take control.
But not permanent control.
The field was fairly comfortably lined up Logano, Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski, McDowell, Austin Dillon, Chase Elliott, and then the rest. Cole Custer, Ross Chastain, and Ryan Preece had tried to make a move down low, but there just wasn’t anything there, which had kind of been the story ever since the delay ended. Nobody could get enough momentum low, so everyone stayed up high, and nobody wanted to risk crashing when staying on the lead lap was enough to be in contention, the field having shrunk as much as it did on the fourteenth lap.
But Brad Keselowski knows some tricks, and as the checkered flag approached, he made his move.
Logano was being pushed by the line of cars behind him, but if he were to lose even some of that push, he could lose momentum. Keselowski, who’s good at aerodynamic maneuvers like this one, backed off of Harvick’s bumper, leaving Logano and Harvick out to dry a bit before making a charge of his own. Keselowski, who now had the support of the column of cars previously backing Logano, succeeded in getting past Harvick, but not past his Penske teammate. When he entered turn three, he made another attempt, diving low on a big push for McDowell, with Logano’s late block and McDowell’s push combining to collect both Logano and Keselowski while McDowell slid through, eventually being ruled the winner (ahead of Elliott) based on when the caution flag had come out.
The Logano/Keselowski wreck caught a lot of the rest of the field and produced a massive fireball that appeared to come from Keselowski’s former fuel cell. Thankfully, everyone walked away ok.
Notable Names
Chase Elliott finished second.
Austin Dillon finished third and picked up a lot of stage points.
Kevin Harvick finished fourth.
Denny Hamlin got through the carnage to come out in fifth.
Jamie McMurray, out of retirement for a day, came in eighth.
Kyle Larson was tenth, grabbed stage points, and was involved in the final collision as well as an earlier one that involved Christopher Bell (second Bell collision) and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
Joey Logano was twelfth.
Brad Keselowski was 13th.
Kyle Busch was 14th and was heavily involved in the Logano/Keselowski wreck.
Bubba Wallace was 17th, having been in contention all day until a vibration forced him to make an extra pit stop, which in turn took him down a lap. He did pick up twelve stage points, right up there with the leaders.
Chase Briscoe wound up 19th.
Kurt Busch wound up 22nd.
Martin Truex Jr., William Byron, and Tyler Reddick made it to the end of the race but were far off the lead lap, having been involved in the big one on Lap 14.
Blaney, Matt DiBenedetto, Aric Almirola, Alex Bowman, Ryan Newman, and Erik Jones were all eliminated in the early wreck.
Thoughts, Implications
McDowell’s in the playoffs, which is huge for him and for Front Row Motorsports.
Overall, it was a disappointing day. Expectations were so high, and the rain really dashed them, as did having so much of the field out so early, as that led to a lot of single-file racing. It was a solid race by normal standards, but by Daytona 500 standards it fell a little flat. If the goal was to make inroads with casual fans, I don’t know that the goal was accomplished. Great day until the rain. Ok night after the rain.
What’s Next
Daytona again next weekend, but the Road Course. Sunday race again.
Xfinity, Trucks
Meant to mention this in the morning. Austin Cindric won yesterday’s Xfinity race. Ben Rhodes won Friday’s Truck race.
Videos
The Bell/Almirola/Bowman/field wreck in real time:
Same wreck, slowed down. Note the experience of Ryan Blaney (the 12 car) in the infield:
William Byron’s car disintegrating:
The aftermath of Houff and Briscoe (haven’t seen a good shot of this personally, so apologies if I missed it):
The finish:
Another look at the final wreck:
Fun Stuff
Here’s Kaz Grala’s tire on fire:
Here’s the car with which Tyler Reddick somehow completed 185 of the 200 laps while staying above minimum speed:
Here’s Chase Briscoe at the Panda Express drivethrough, in his firesuit, with his wife during the rain delay (others did similar things but this was the first tweet I saw about it):
And here’s Jeff Gluck’s story from 2012 about Landon Cassill’s Daytona 500 rain delay experience, in which he invited fans to meet him at Burger King and then carpooled with them to play mini-golf over at the beach while the track dried.
I completely agree with your perspective. It was, in fact, a rather milquetoast Daytona 500. (Dairy pun!)
When confronted with somewhat boring races, one has to work harder to find the meritorious aspects. For me, the most subtly interesting occurrence was Denny Hamlin’s decision to drop to the back of the field mere laps before the big Bell/Almirola/Bowman wreck. Hamlin was showing good pace, but it’s almost as if his sixth sense started to tingle. He could tell that drivers were pushing too hard, too early. He eased off, joined the back-markers, and it probably helped save his race. Of course, the unscheduled green flag pitstop and the failure of the Toyotas to work together undid all that good work, but it was nevertheless neat to see a truly great driver adopt a somewhat counterintuitive strategy and play the long game.
Thank you for your continued patronage of dairy-fueled language.
Yes—Great analysis. It was a tactical race, and tactical races can be fun as well, but you don’t look for tactical racing at the Daytona 500. Thank you for sharing your favorite parts of this national experience.