Among the drivers who have enjoyed good starts to the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season, Michael McDowell may be the biggest positive surprise. Through the first seven races of 2025, McDowell is 15th in points and 16th in the playoff grid. His finishes have not garnered much attention because he is still without a top 10 this season. However, McDowell does have five finishes between 11th and 16th and has mostly stayed out of trouble. These results include his 12th-place finish at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday (March 30).
The start of 2025 also marks McDowell’s first races with Spire Motorsports. He had previously raced for Front Row Motorsports since 2018, joining Bob Jenkins’ organization after many seasons of bouncing around with struggling teams. McDowell’s time with FRM saw the team make slow but steady improvements. His biggest triumph was winning the 2021 Daytona 500, a victory that got McDowell into the playoffs for the first time. He and the No. 34 team returned to the postseason in 2023, aided by a win at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. It is highly likely that McDowell’s growth as a driver and his experiences driving for underfunded teams were critical to the advancement of FRM.
It therefore came as a big surprise last year when McDowell announced that he was leaving Front Row to join Spire in 2025. The announcement came in early May, which is much sooner than silly season moves typically get confirmed. It always seemed more likely that McDowell, who turned 40 this past December, would end his career with FRM unless he got an offer from one of the top teams in NASCAR. Additionally, when the impending closure of Stewart-Haas Racing came to light later that month, it stood to reason that Front Row might be one of the teams that benefitted from a reallocation of Ford’s resources. Most of all, fans wondered how FRM could so easily part with the veteran driver who had been the foundation of their growth.
Leaving Front Row for Spire felt like a risky bet for McDowell. While Spire had been slowly building up its resources since 2019, the team had no history of being a contender. Its only win came at Daytona International Speedway with Justin Haley when a cloudburst halted, and ultimately ended, the race before he and the team could make a planned pit stop.
More recently, Spire had tried to build itself around Corey LaJoie, but LaJoie’s ongoing struggles led to his dismissal from the team before the 2024 season ended. Rookie Carson Hocevar was able to wring as much speed as anyone out of Spire’s cars last year, but his efforts still only resulted in six top 10s. There was some speculation that McDowell might get paired with crew chief Rodney Childers, but in the end, McDowell’s Front Row crew chief Travis Peterson wound up following him to Spire. The team’s 2025 lineup includes McDowell, Hocevar, and Haley, who returned to the organization as LaJoie’s replacement.
After seven races, McDowell finds himself well ahead of his new teammates. Hocevar and Haley are tied for 28th in points, 46 markers behind McDowell. Hocevar has the flashiest moment of the Spire trio so far, nearly winning at Atlanta Motor Speedway (and ruffling the feathers of a few competitors in the process.) But the No. 77 team’s fortunes took a bad turn soon after with three straight finishes of 30th or worse. Hocevar’s 19th-place run at Martinsville stopped the skid but did nothing to elevate his points position. Haley earned a top 10 at Homestead-Miami Speedway but has otherwise been invisible this season.
McDowell has not completely avoided setbacks, but he has been able to rebound from them more effectively than his younger teammates.
At Atlanta, the No. 71 team had an electrical problem that caused them to fall behind early. Once they addressed the issue, the team hung on long enough to get six free passes under caution, and McDowell ended the race on the lead lap in 13th place. Two weeks later at Phoenix Raceway, an early crash put McDowell in a bad spot, but his team repaired the car and avoided the much larger accident that knocked out Haley and Hocevar. Even at Martinsville, where Hocevar and Haley were aggressively trading paint with each other, McDowell stayed out of the fray and earned the best Martinsville finish of his career, which now includes 29 starts at The Paperclip.
Even if McDowell’s finishes are not outstanding, it is impressive to see him in playoff contention early in the season. This is the time of year when the points standings become a more trustworthy picture of how drivers are weekly performing. The fact that McDowell is ahead of his two teammates and all three of the Front Row cars suggests that joining Spire may turn out to be a good move.
However, as the season progresses and more drivers earn wins, getting a victory of their own will become more important for McDowell and the No. 71 team. It is not out of the realm of possibility that Spire could score a win at a drafting track or a road course (the team had all three cars finish in the top 10 at Watkins Glen International last year). Those tracks play right into McDowell’s strength. Yet at this point, a Spire win in the next 19 races remains unlikely. If it happens, it will take a healthy dose of luck and favorable circumstances.
That said, McDowell has beaten the odds before. He made 357 Cup Series starts before his first win, taking start and park rides for years just to stay visible in the garage. His determination paid off with a Daytona 500 win and a victory on the hallowed grounds of Indianapolis. McDowell is off to a good start in his new opportunity with Spire, and maybe another surprise awaits him down the road.
Bryan began writing for Frontstretch in 2016. He has penned Up to Speed for the past eight years. A lifelong student of auto racing, Bryan is a published author and automotive historian. He is a native of Columbus, Ohio and currently resides in Southern Kentucky.