A strong weekend for Michael McDowell went up in smoke on Sunday toward the beginning of stage two. McDowell led ten laps in the beginning stage during green flag pit stops (the most McDowell has ever led in a single race) and ran inside the top twenty a majority of the afternoon. McDowell began reporting smoke in the cockpit and ultimately brought the car to the garage instead of letting the engine explode on track.“We are still trying to diagnose exactly what happened," said McDowell. "We started to lose some power there and had a lot of smoke in the cockpit. Normally they don’t fix themselves. The Love’s Ford was fast today. We had a good strategy and played it out. We were back on the lead lap, in a good position. We were able to maintain that first run but unfortunately, it just wasn’t meant to be for us today."
Engine failures haven't been common for McDowell in his career as his last one came at Las Vegas in 2014. It is only the eleventh race ending engine issue of his MENCS career.
"I am really proud of everyone at Front Row Motorsports. We brought a fast car here. It is going to hurt us in the points. We came in here 15th and had a good run going today and were hoping to stay in the top-15. We will go to Phoenix and hopefully, we will unload with a fast Ford again and make sure we get to the end.”
McDowell is coming off a 24th place performance last weekend at Atlanta. Following two strong finishes, McDowell was sitting 15th in Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series points but will certainly drop following a 37th place finish. The 37th place finish is his worst finish since Chicago in 2016, he also finished 37th in that race. (Koelle,2018)
Photo Credit - Brandon Wright/Brandon Wright Photography
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