Michael McDowell was the best road course racer in the NASCAR Cup Series during Sunday’s Verizon 200 at the Brickyard, leading 54-of-82 laps en route to picking up his first victory of the 2023 season.
While nobody will dispute that, McDowell himself won’t claim himself to be the best road course racer the sport has to offer. That title, he said on Denny Hamlin’s “Actions Detrimental” podcast Monday, belongs to Chase Elliott, who he fended off to clinch his spot in the Cup Series playoffs.
“I knew Chase Elliott is the best road course racer there is in our sport,” McDowell said. “You can’t deny that. He’s got like seven wins in the last five years. Statistically he is the best and I know that. He can win any given weekend — he could have won this weekend. He could win the next one… It was like if he wins, I’m still gonna run fifth. He’s not gonna get 40 points on me. He might get 15, he might get 20, but there’s no way he’s gonna get 40.”
Michael McDowell dominates IMS Road Course to clinch postseason berth
McDowell entered Sunday’s race right on the cutline of the playoff picture alongside Ty Gibbs, Daniel Suárez and Elliott among others. While McDowell thought it was possible to clinch a postseason berth on points, a dominant victory at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course left no doubt.
With two Cup Series victories to his name — one being the 2021 Daytona 500 and another at IMS — McDowell certainly has a flare for showing up when it matters most, as does his family, who happened to be in attendance Sunday.
“Winning the Daytona 500 was one of the coolest moments you could ever have,” McDowell said after the race, via NASCAR.com. “But going to Victory Lane without your family, that was tough.
“So we cherry-pick. We come to the races we think we can win… Just so proud… You know, I thought we could point our way in [the playoffs], but after the car that we had yesterday in practice, I thought, man, we’ve got a good shot at winning if we could just get track position and maintain it.”