Michael McDowell isn’t a road-course ringer, but he would be if he weren’t a full-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series driver for Front Row Motorsports.
Before he came to stock car racing, McDowell was an instructor at the Bondurant Racing School in Chandler, Arizona. David Ragan clearly feels a coattail effect from having McDowell as a teammate at Front Row as he readies for Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway (3 p.m. ET on FS1, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“Absolutely,” Ragan said. “Over the years, I have had great teammates that run good out here. Having a teammate like Michael as we are coming to a track where he has raced on the carousel before, so he kind of knows where the passing zone is, where you can be aggressive and where you need to be conservative at.
“He gives you a few of those tips. Obviously, he’s racing against us, so he isn’t going to tell us everything. It’s good to have a teammate like that to help me as a driver, but to also help the company to work on adjustments and gear ratios and what works good for him, I can usually adapt and make it work for me too.”
McDowell qualified 13th for Sunday’s race, missing the second round by .099 seconds. Ragan wasn’t far behind. He’ll start 18th.
Greg is a published award winning sportswriter who spent 23 years combined active and active reserve military service, much of that in and around the Special Operations community.
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.