FORT WORTH, Texas — Four laps.
Four laps were all that separated Michael McDowell from victory lane in Sunday’s (May 4) Wurth 400 at Texas Motor Speedway for his third NASCAR Cup Series win, his first in 58 races and his first on a non-superspeedway oval.
With a No. 71 car fast enough to qualify fifth, McDowell and the Spire Motorsports team had played their cards perfectly by dodging numerous wrecks and employing smart pit strategy.
They took two tires during the final round of pit stops on lap 222, and that call vaulted the team up to second place. It didn’t take long from there for McDowell to find the lead, as he pounced on a lap 244 restart when the dominant car of Kyle Larson faltered.
But the team eventually had to pay the piper for the two-tire call, and McDowell’s car started to falter with the Team Penske duo of Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney — with four new tires — in hot pursuit.
“Obviously we were on two tires, so we knew it was an uphill battle, but we thought we had a good shot at it,” McDowell said. “We weren’t the best today, but we were fast enough to put ourselves in position.”
With less than 10 laps to go, it became clear that a lead change was imminent. Logano got a run down the backstretch with four laps to go, and while McDowell tried blocking him all the way to the apron, it wasn’t enough as the No. 22 car was able to scoot right on by,
“Got a couple of good restarts, had one that was so-so, average, but then when the No. 22 started to close in, I was right at the limit, doing everything I could,” McDowell explained. “I haven’t seen a replay, [but] I felt like I drove him as far down as you could without doing something crazy and dumb, and he was still able to get there unfortunately.”
It only took one lap for things to go from bad to worse. Blaney was now in hot pursuit for second, but McDowell still looked poised to score a top-five finish. As the No. 12 car completed the pass for second at the exit of turn 2, however, McDowell got stuck in dirty air, lost control and crashed hard into the outside wall.
“When the No. 12 (Blaney) just slid up in front of me a little bit, [it] took the air off of it and it just took off,” McDowell said. “It had kind of caught me off guard. I’d been in dirty air all day, but that particular spot just caught me off guard.”
What was at least going to be a solid points day — and McDowell’s first top-10 finish of the season — instead ended with a 26th-place result and a junked car.
“It stinks to leave here waded up and not get a finish, not get a win.”
The DNF dropped him to 20th in Cup points, but he’s still in the mix for a playoff berth with just a 26-point deficit to Ricky Stenhouse Jr., the current driver on the cut line. And with the performance they put on at Texas, there’s still plenty of time for McDowell and co. to right the ship.
“As long as we keep bringing the speed we brought today, we’ll have more shots at it,” McDowell said. “Just frustrated I didn’t do a better job of staying up front.”
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Find Stephen on Twitter @stephen_stumpf