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NASCAR Cup Talladega II

Seeking Talladega redemption, can Michael McDowell be the next playoffs spoiler?

Drivers who didn't even make the 2024 NASCAR Cup playoffs have won half of the playoff races so far — will that trend continue at Talladega?

Nick DeGroot

Edited: Oct 6, 2024, 4:57 PM

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Michael McDowell is a pole miser as of late, earning his sixth pole of the 2024 season at Talladega Superspeedway -- a category where he leads all drivers so far this year. It's a tremendous feat for a driver who failed earn a single pole in the first 15 years of his Cup career.

There is no reason to think the success will stop once the green flag flies for the 500-mile event. McDowell is a highly capable superspeedway racer and the winner of the 2021 Daytona 500. Earlier this year, he was mere seconds from winning at Talladega before an aggressive block ended with him spinning into the outside wall.

Michael McDowell, Front Row Motorsports, Love's Travel Stops Ford Mustang wrecks and Tyler Reddick, 23XI Racing, Jordan Brand Toyota Camry

Photo by: Nigel Kinrade / NKP / Motorsport Images

“After the spring race, I played it in my head a lot," admitted McDowell. "Just because you’re always trying to learn and study and figure out, ‘OK, what went right and what went wrong? How would you process it different? How would you make the moves different?’ It’s more analytical than just, ‘Oh, don’t make the last block.’ It’s how do you do all the things you need to do and still win the race. And then you kind of just lock in and get focused and you move on.

"You move on pretty quickly in our sport. You have to learn to do that because if not, next week is here and you can get in your head and anytime that happens you can lose momentum, good or bad, so you try to move on quickly," he said.

"I don't want to see" replays of Talladega loss

As NASCAR's return to Talladega approached, replays of the dramatic finish that ended with McDowell in the wall, Corey LaJoie on his lid and Tyler Reddick in Victory Lane are popping up all over social media. The Front Row Motorsports driver has purposely avoided those clips as he doesn't want to dwell on it.

"As this race came up and is coming up, you see it all on social media – the last lap," explained McDowell. "Every time I just won’t even let it get to the wreck. I stop it. I just scroll up or scroll left or right. I don’t know what you call it, but it’s because I don’t want to see it. The reason I don’t want to see it is it’s hard. That was my shot to make the playoffs. That was our shot to get a win and it slipped out of our hands, but the reason I don’t want to watch it and the reason why I don’t reflect on it is because I’m staying in this moment.

Pole sitter Michael McDowell, Front Row Motorsports, Love's Travel Stops Ford Mustang

Photo by: Rusty Jarrett / NKP / Motorsport Images

"Tomorrow is a new day, a new opportunity and we’ll have a shot of winning the race. I’m gonna think about the things I need to do to win the race tomorrow and try not to fixate too much on what happened last time. You learn from it and you definitely, like I said right after, I studied it hard for hours and figured out a game plan of what I would do different, and so we sort of have that locked in and try to move on,” he said.

Playoff spoiler as an outgoing FRM driver

McDowell lost his shot to make the playoffs, but now he has the opportunity to do something else -- disrupt the playoffs. Chris Buescher did it with his victory at Watkins Glen and Ross Chastain just denied William Byron automatic advancement with his Kansas win.

It would be extra special for the driver of the No. 34 as his time with FRM nears its end as he plans to move over to Spire Motorsports for 2025.

“It would mean the world," said McDowell when asked about winning one more time with this team. "I think you guys have seen it in some of desperation this season of moves that I typically wouldn’t make just trying to get that win because it is my last season at Front Row Motorsports. I owe so much to Bob Jenkins for taking my career from barely hanging on for dear life to winning races and winning poles and contending. Everything inside of me and this 34 team, we want to get a win before the end of the year and we have great opportunities to do that. Today was the first win that we needed to get the pole and tomorrow we’ll go out there and try to get that checkered flag.”

Only five drivers in the field have more Cup starts than McDowell at Talladega, and he should be high on anyone's list when looking at more non-playoff drivers that can swoop in and steal the checkered flag on Sunday.

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