Michael McDowell, piloting the No. 71 Spire Motorsports Camaro ZL1 and the No. 11 Kaulig Racing Camaro SS, is set to undertake a demanding schedule this weekend, competing in both the NASCAR Cup and Xfinity Series at Watkins Glen International. He recently spoke with media about the challenges and excitement of running these two races and his prospects at this iconic road course.

Excitement and Challenges Around Driving in the Xfinity Series

McDowell shared his enthusiasm about jumping back into an Xfinity car this weekend, highlighting both the fun and nerves that come with switching between different types of racecars. He noted the distinct differences between the Next Gen Cup cars and the Xfinity vehicles, acknowledging the challenge this presents. Reflecting on his last Xfinity outing at Road America in 2016, McDowell expressed optimism about his chances this time around, saying,

“Yeah, it’s been a long time, so it’s been exciting. Yeah, it’s been fun. I haven’t driven the car yet, but just, you know, the prep work and some of the simulator work and yeah, it’s nerve racking too, just because the cars are very different than the Next Gen Cup cars. But, you know, thankful for the opportunity and I’m glad to get some, you know, more reps and, you know, last time I ran, Xfinity car was Road America 2016 and felt like, man, I’m not going to get it in one of these things again unless I could win, and I feel like this is a car that I can win in. So, I’m excited to give it a shot.”

—Michael McDowell

Significance of the Watkins Glen Cup Race for McDowell’s Season

Discussing the vital nature of the upcoming Cup Series race at Watkins Glen, McDowell characterized it as a “do or die” moment for his championship prospects. Although other races remain, such as those at Richmond and Daytona, he indicated that winning at Watkins Glen is the clearest path to controlling his own destiny. He stated,

“It’s do or die for sure, yeah. I mean, yes, we have more opportunities. I mean, we’re not we can go to Richmond and run well too, and obviously, Daytona, I feel like we have a shot at it. But to me, this is the only way you control your own destiny is to win here. The other two are very tough to execute and have everything go your way, so times winding down, as you guys know, right? And, the pressure always ramps up as the times winding down, but I’ve been in the spot before, and, yeah, definitely feel confident that our road course programs, you know, been really good. And if we do our job and we have a fast car and we qualify well today, and we can start up front, we we’ll have a shot at it.”

—Michael McDowell

Reflecting on the 2016 Road America Victory and Its Impact

McDowell fondly recalled his memorable win at Road America with RCR in 2016, a pivotal moment that boosted his confidence and career outlook. He described the race as a culmination of hard work and perseverance after earlier near-misses driving for the Gibbs team. McDowell shared an amusing story about Sam Hornish, who practiced qualifying his Cup car the day before his win, only to struggle with pace, illustrating the unpredictable nature of racing:

“Yeah, it was it was a great moment. There’s a lot of funny stories. You know, I’d driven the Gibbs car a couple years prior to that at those places and sat on the pole and led the most laps and had shots at winning and just never got to the finish line. You know, green/white/checkers or fuel miles or whatever it is. and with the RCR group, I had one race, you know, sort of one race, one shot, and it all worked out. Just a good execution all day and no problems, and kind of like how you dreamed it up to be, where, you know, the last several before that that Gibbs cars, like, I probably had more speed and more of a dominant day, but it just didn’t work out, so to have it all finally come together was a big relief, honestly, just because it had been, you know, such a long time and so close. But just a funny part of, you know, the journey there is Sam Hornish was practicing qualifying my car in Michigan, my Cup car. And so, you know, he ran the car Saturday, and I obviously won the race, flew back to Michigan, and I talked to Sam for a little bit, and honestly, he just personally did me a favor of practicing qualifying that car. It’s not something I think he truly wanted to do. And I said, How was it?”

And Hornish replied,

“Man, I know it’s probably me, ’cause I haven’t driven, but it’s so bad. I remember thinking, Oh, it can’t be that bad, right? It’s going to be okay.”

—Michael McDowell

Confidence and Momentum as Keys to Watkins Glen Success

When asked about his confidence heading into Watkins Glen, McDowell emphasized the difference between confidence and momentum, explaining that momentum often has a stronger influence on performance. He noted that road courses have generally been a strength for him, which increases his momentum and belief in his chance to win. Despite previous mechanical setbacks, McDowell expressed strong optimism:

“Yeah, confidence is, you know, is interesting. We talk about a lot of our sport, and it’s a real thing. But I think momentum’s more of a real thing than confidence, and they correlate, they go together. I mean, I think I show up every weekend feeling like I can win. And, you know, obviously, the real courses are a little bit more pep in our step just because they’ve been our strength, and that’s more of the momentum, you know, when you run top five, most of them, you know that you have a fighting chance at it. And, yeah, but with confidence, I’ll say this, is that, you know, I showed up as Sonoma, thinking after Chicago, that we were gonna be the car to beat, and we weren’t. And that’s how finicky Cup racing is. We still ran well. We still ran in the top five, but we didn’t have the outright pace that we needed to do what we needed to do at Sonoma. But we come in here confident that we got it all right, and that we will. And so I feel like we this is probably our strongest track as a group last year, you know, all three Spire cars were in the top ten, and, you know, individually, even though the results won’t show it, this is probably my best track from an outright speed standpoint. You know, we’ve had an engine failure and a bunch of issues over the last three years, but let a lot of laps and been out front a lot here, so confidence is high. But you got to execute, and you know, you got to hit everything just right.”

—Michael McDowell

Evolution of Road Course Strategy and Vehicle Setup

McDowell addressed how the team’s approach to road course programs has shifted significantly from previous years. Recognizing that earlier strategies were not effective, they adopted a slower, more deliberate development process, gathering valuable lessons from various tracks such as COTA, Mexico, Chicago, and Sonoma. This gradual evolution aims to refine the car’s setup to better suit McDowell’s driving style and improve results at challenging venues like Watkins Glen. He explained,

“Yeah, it’s not even close. Um, I sort of we sort of had to abandon that ship fairly early on of what we used to run versus what we run now. It just hasn’t worked. I think we’ve talked about that a few times, so we went to the mindset of this is gonna be a slower building process, than we had hoped, but it’s actually worked out because we, you know, we went to COTA and learned things there, and then, you know, I kind of transferred over into Mexico and felt like we made a next step, and then went to Chicago and made a next step, and then went to Sonoma and took a step back, and hopefully we’ve made that next step back forward. And so just slowly building that package around me and around the baseline that they’ve had, which is very different than what I’ve ran the last two years.”

—Michael McDowell

Preparing for the Specific Demands of Watkins Glen

McDowell highlighted the unique aspects of Watkins Glen that influence both qualifying and race strategies. He observed that while lap times during qualifying depend heavily on speed through key sections like the esses and the bus stop, the actual passing zones during the race are located primarily in turns one and six. This distinction requires teams to balance their setups to perform well in both qualifying and race scenarios, focusing on reliability through corners without compromising overtaking capability. As he explained,

“Yeah, it’s different here for the race than it is for qualifying, what you’re looking for, I should say, because we’re a lap time and speeds made is not necessarily where passing’s made. So, it’s a little bit of two different things. I mean, you got to be good in all the corners, you don’t have any room for throwaways, but, you know, your lap time and your speed’s going to come from the esses. The esses and the bus stop. But you don’t pass so much there, you pass into turn one and you pass into turn six. And so, for this practice here, you’re focusing on both of, what do I need to make, you know, ultimate lap time and am I good in these areas leading up to the passing zones? So, it is unique from that standpoint where some of the other tracks are more straightforward of where you need to be strong. This, I think, is different for lap time than it is for race.”

—Michael McDowell

Analyzing Shane van Gisbergen’s Dominance in Road Course Events

Asked about the remarkable success of Shane van Gisbergen, who has won the last three road course races, McDowell shed light on why such dominance is difficult to replicate despite extensive data availability. He compared analyzing data to watching someone work out without fully understanding how to achieve the same fitness, emphasizing that muscle memory and unique driving style play crucial roles. McDowell remarked,

“Yeah, I mean, I would relate to this just because, um, you know, social media or Instagram, you see somebody working out on lifting weights, doesn’t mean that you know how to get fit. It’s kind of the same thing with data, is you can look at it all you want, and you can say, I need to do this, but actually doing it is different. You know, your muscle memory and having the car set up in the feel and, you know, all the uniqueness to a driving style. You know, the guys that talk about that were Denny and those guys that, you know, had a clear advantage in the old car and short tracks, Denny’s phenomenal with saving tires and all the things he did. So there was maybe a few little trade secrets that you could learn, but as we’ve seen, going and doing what he did there’s still hard to do, right? And so you can see the data, but duplicating it and duplicating the feel and you’re not driving their car as well. You don’t know what their setups are, you don’t know, you know, what they’re doing, that allows, you know, a person to approach it like that. So, it gives you, it gives you an area to work on. It gives you an area to identify, okay, this is where I’m getting beat. How can I get better?”

He added,

“But just trying to do what somebody else does is really hard. And you see that even with teammates. You know, you see inside of organizations, you know, guys that have the same cars and have all the information, can’t do the same things, and I think it’s more of driving style and each of us is fairly unique. but it does help to highlight where you got to get better.”

—Michael McDowell

Supporting Emerging Talent: Reflections on Tristan McKee’s Win

McDowell also reflected on the impressive performance by 15-year-old Tristan McKee at Watkins Glen, recognizing the young driver’s composure and achievement in a high-pressure environment. He compared his own experience at that age and praised the importance of nurturing young talent through gradual development without rushing progress. Emphasizing the strategic investment in future stars, McDowell noted,

“Yeah, not winning at Watkins Glen. Yeah, it’s really awesome to see and, you know, obviously, we’ve invested a lot into seeing the potential and where it could go, and at a young age, it’s so hard. It’s hard because. I would say if you just look at, like Joey Logano, you look at Kyle Larson, you look at all the young guys at that 14, 15, 16 age, they were dominant in everything that they did, but as you take that next step and next step and next step, it just gets harder and harder and harder and, you know, obviously, he rose to the occasion yesterday, and, you had things go his way, for sure. I mean, Brent Cruz was, you know, pretty dominant all day, but he put himself in position and he executed and to do that at 15 years old is extremely hard with a tremendous amount of pressure of it being his first race, so it was really cool to see. You know, it was it was a fun moment, too, you know, for me, because, you know, obviously I’m vested here at Spire and plan on being here a long time, and we’ll have a part in picking my replacement, which it looks like my replacement’s been picked, and the faster he gets through all these series, the faster I’m gonna be out of the seat. So it was a little bit of those moments of like, I still like driving. If this guy keeps doing this, this is gonna be really short for me. But, no, I mean, I feel like it’s great. And to have, you know, depth of young talent is super important, and, you know, I think the sky’s the limit, and it’s just gonna be about putting him in the right situations, and then also, too, you know, you got to be careful not to rush it, and, um, it’s easy for us to all do that, because of yesterday, right? I mean, we’ve seen it in our sport before, it’s like, ah, and then you just keep rushing it, rushing and rushing it, and sometimes that makes it a little bit too much, because you don’t get all the fundamentals that you need to progress to the next level. So, the good news is, is there’s a plan in place, and he has a lot of time available to him, right? And so it’s really not a rush because of how far ahead he is. And so, yeah, it was very cool to watch.”

—Michael McDowell

Implications and Outlook for Watkins Glen Weekend

Michael McDowell’s preparations for Watkins Glen reflect a determined and resilient mindset as he seeks to secure a pivotal victory that could define his NASCAR season. Balancing competition in both the Cup and Xfinity Series, McDowell’s experience, evolving road course program, and focus on critical race details position him as a serious contender. Success at this venue would not only advance his championship hopes but also represent a reaffirmation of his growth as a versatile driver. Looking ahead, McDowell’s performance may also signal rising leadership within Spire Motorsports as young talents like Tristan McKee develop alongside him, ensuring competitive depth for the future.