Michael McDowell claims pole at Daytona

okay hurry not right now thank you we are now joined by our poll sitter for tomorrow night's race we're here with Michael mcdal we'll go ahead and open it up for questions if you have one please raise your hand and we will get a mic over to you we'll start here with John and then go to Anthony steps in John newb Al driver so you know two front row starts at Daytona four polls this season I ask this kind of ingest what gives oh full answer as long as you can give it jie good hold on sec I give him this one no got you got spares hang tight testing oh yeah how about now um it's a it's a funny story actually so qualifying has never been a strength for us at Super Speedways um but we've always raced really well and so we've just always thought ah you know it takes so much time and energy to get all these little small details just perfect to go out there and beat fenders side by side three wide and just is it worth all the effort um and so we just decided okay we are going to take as much time as we possibly have available to execute everything that we can to the best of our ability and really focus on taking our time and trying to do every detail perfect and it was kind of a inside I joke at the shop or just one of those jokes of like hey if we go to Daytona for Daytona 500 and we qualify 18th we are never ever putting this much time and energy into another race car again I mean we just a massive amount of time and energy and by everybody at front row and um we came down here and we qualified second right and we all looked at each other like oh you know what this means it means we got to do this every single time the the you know we we set the bar high for ourselves and so that just moved the bar internally and so when we went to Atlanta and sat on the pole I mean obviously it's the Super Speedway package but it's not like Daytona and Talladega where it's just easy flat like we saw guys hit the wall and spin out and qualifying right so it's not exactly the same but we sat on the pole there and then sort of knew going to Talladega that if we did everything well and find those fine little details that we'd have a shot at so I think that's the the long story of it right kind of shortened is that we just prove to ourselves that with a lot of extra and when I mean a lot I mean a lot of extra time that it matters and we just put that time in and and it's just paid off yeah we'll go to Anthony then to Matt wherever the 24 doesn't first of all how special is it to be on the with your teammates the front row I don't think theot horrible I think the top was the right was where I was encouraging to go the Bott work so I just think you got to take the front row then just see what happens I me I know you won't believe me but there is so now it will be William Byron's Choice as far as he'll be first to choose but you look at the we're just kind of assuming it's we know it's nine laps difference well so let's just remind everyone as they come to the Cho we saw this Indianapolis William does have to P coming back to the the line just moves up and re would become the control car currently buyer in front now it's going be from topon is the control car at the moment i' excited but it's just not right so but whether it's a Speedway or a restart Brad K is is Mr Pusher in my mind he's going to get a down into turn one Ste do you worry about the pickups again you had mentioned it before they're on the left and right sides so this car is not as bad the bottom of the cup series actually has a little bit of a v to it so it's not just big flat plane like the xinity cars were here on Saturday a couple days ago uh this one does a much better job of filling up so it's less of a concern I mean it's still a concern but not as not as bad as the old style we haven't got to the and nose to tail and had a shot at trying to win the race together um but you know from my standpoint is the best thing that we can do for our team and for ourselves is to work together because we have Fast Cars And if we can work together and we we've seen guys do it well like the the six and the 17 here last year right and they did a a great job and I think if it wasn't Chris Bucher leading that race in front of Brad Brad would have would have drove that race much different that last lap um he did give himself a chance to win but didn't ever put Chris in a situation where he wasn't going to if that makes sense right and I think that's what it comes down to is I don't want to take away a win from Todd I I want to win myself tomorrow night but if we're in that situ situation you have to play it out to where is my move going to hurt both of us or is it going to help one of us or or both of us right so you don't know until you're in that situation you know and we haven't been there yet to to know on that last lap coming off a turn four what what we would do um but it really is situational just like anything else you know so um hopefully we're in that spot hopefully we we can get to the the last few laps of these races and put ourselves in position um because as you guys know so much can happen all right in this this race in particular uh there's a lot that can happen so hopefully we get to that point to to kind of feel and see what we would do go to Matt and then down here to Lee Matt Weaver Sports not on one hand you're the Daytona 500 Champion you've had success here on the other hand there's like a 75% chance you're going to end up in a thing did you come into the tunnel feeling like excited dread anxiety all of it oh no I come here excited um that's really what helped me change my perspective and I think become a better Super Speedway racer is that you know coming from a road course background and road racing and you know it's just super speedway racing is its own thing it's different than anything else that we do or anything else that you've ever done you know in your career getting to this point and I remember the first Super Speedway race I did we were four wide on the backstraight of tallad and I was running probably 25th and I was like this is the dumbest thing ever I mean what are we doing you can't go anywhere you're locked in the middle I mean one guy makes one wrong move and we're all piled up in a ball you know like this is not racing I mean that's kind of my first year and um and so once I've learned to embrace it and enjoy it and become a student of it it's really helped me um and so now I come here optimistic and when I drive through the tunnel I think we have a better shot than most to win this race um and I know everybody has a shot but at the same time if you just look forget about the the win here just top 10 I don't even know what the number is but double digits top 10 here and that doesn't just happen by happen stance and so I feel like for whatever reason this place has been good to me in that sense of feeling the pack feeling when things are going to happen putting yourself in a good position and you know Dale Jr always talks about hey you're not going going to win every single one of these but you need to be in that pitcher you know that pitcher they snap over the the start Finish Line as everybody's coming across the line three wide and half sideways and I've been in a lot of those pitchers and if we continue to do that no different than 2021 uh we'll have a shot at win in the race and as you guys saw at Talladega I mean obviously we had a shot at win in the race and um you know just wasn't able to to make the right move there and at the end and put myself in a bad spot so if we keep putting ourselves in that position wi we'll we'll get one so to that point given the potential transformative nature of winning here for what that would mean to your season like do you carry that weight of expectation and pressure at all for sure yeah I think um I mean every week you feel the pressure but there's some weeks more than others and um you know Rog hores super Speedways we feel that more that if we don't win or don't put ourselves in position to win that it's a missed opportunity um but at the same time I've been doing it long enough to know that you can't control everything and you can't you can't prepare for every scenario and sometimes you get it wrong right and I think talad guy did everything right until I didn't and the the move that I did wrong was a big wrong right and so you learn from those things and and you adjust and you make a game plan for the next situation but the next situation is completely different and um and so it's a constant learning and growing growing process especially here at Super Speedways yeah we're going to go to Lee then Claire and then Zach Lee Spencer here six n on catch fence.com forgive me if I I know I asked you this outside but I said 17 years I mean to get to take 17 years to get that first poll and now you have four of them and you said you know it's not always the car it's not always the driver but I'm just kind of baffled when you have a streak that that's long that goes that long yeah I mean what has been the difference this year yeah it's it's so many things but for super Speedways in particular it's just speed I mean the driver yes I have if I was going to give it a percentage which I wish Brad was still in here because he's always fun to have these conversations because he's a dork um I would say the driver is don't put that I heard you type over there don't type that in there um 10% qual finds 10% right driver 90% car you got to hit your marks you you got to hit your shifts just right which has come down to you know 10 RPMs right like you get a report and if you're 10 or 15 RPMs off they're like hey you missed it um but it's all about speed and we've had a lot of speed in our cars now Gateway is different for sure um you know that's not a super speedway and we got the pull there and I don't know what the stats are but you know this year I think 10 12 times we've made it to the second round and qualifying not just at Super Speedways but everywhere so more than anything our cars just have speed and having speed is important um and then the level of execution that it takes now too with only 20 minutes of practice I think that the time that I put in during the week studying and preparing um has allowed us to unload really quick and put in a solid lap for qualifying so that's been fun different than in years past those other 16 years where you had three hours of practice and you know completely different Car gear sometimes engines I was even been long enough to change engines between qualifying so you know everything's changed so much that it comes down to execution and I think we've done a good job with that has the Pensky allance helped at all um yeah that's a loaded difficult question um I think no I know it's not um yes I think that any time that you're able to share resources especially with an organization like Tim Tim team Pinsky is is huge I don't know if it's led to our qualifying success um but I do feel like our relationship with Ford performance and having more tools and having more um yeah just resources in general has definitely helped the speed at front row and that obviously plays into it um it's been tricky here the last couple months um but we're we're still managing to to make speed and make it happen yeah over here to Claire and then over to Z CLA belay it's wild because while you've been talking about the last 20 minutes it seems like they're showing flips and crashes at Daytona some drivers can't concentrate when they're on the podium they got to watch it but it's hard to think of you watching that especially after you know what we've seen lately and the changes to the car and whatnot what are you able to look at it and not just think like you said earlier what the heck are we doing yeah I mean as crazy as it sounds you don't you don't really think about it um I mean obviously you want to keep the cars on the ground right I know that's a big goal but it's not the worst thing in the planet when they roll I mean I hate to say it like that I don't want that to be taken out of context because we want to keep the cars on the ground but sometimes it dissipates energy and speed as it's rolling rather than hitting something hard um and you know I'm not technical enough to go into what's better but you know like Cory's last week was not super scary for me because of the way that it went up and came down and it's kind of a soft rle I know probably didn't feel soft for him but it didn't fly it just went up and over right and so I think the car did a pretty good job with all the things that are there to keep it from flying um but at Daytona here you know they've obviously paved the back straight away um which is different from you know what what Ryan priest had last year when he came across the you know the 24-hour uh bus stop and then across the grass and it kind of dug in and and if you see too like even at Michigan everything was soft until they hit the grass and it dug in right but at the same time when you're on the asphalt he would have skid for a long long time um so it's there's a balance there too so it doesn't really worry me it doesn't scare me I feel like these cars are really safe and I think drivers just have this ability to block that all out um you're usually not worried about it until you're in it you know and usually even that's delayed you know like I've been in some bad ones where you're like oh yeah this is oh yeah this is going to hurt and all of a sudden you realize that this is going to this is going to hurt um but you don't think about it until till you're in it the right side air deflector added um will you feel that at all or will you have to look at data next week or something to figure out yeah I mean you know with how late that change came I think there was very little information to the teams as far as what this is going to do balance-wise and all that we got a tiny little bit of information um but even that in a wind tunnel by itself isn't a real indicator of what it'll be like like in the pack I don't think anybody knows I mean I think everybody's taking their best guesses but I don't think it's going to be terribly different but there might be some positives from it too so we'll see how the car suck up and every situation is different and that's what's hard about Super Speedway racing as rule packages change you know sometimes you're three wide in the middle and the car responds like this and then sometimes you're three wide in the middle but a car two car lengths off you and all of a sudden you get something completely new and you're like oh whoa where' that come from um and you can see that you know as a fan and as a spectator when guys are caught off guard or just lose it it's because there's a situation that they haven't been in before so with this deflector I'm sure there'll be some of that of figuring out you know does it do something um unique in a certain area um whether that's Middle top bottom behind a car in front of a car but um I don't think it's going to be a huge change and were you glad they made the change um I honestly didn't think much of it other than you know they said that this helps the takeoff speed so obviously with last week they're worried that we're close to that 200 number um which we are when we're pushing hard and sucked up tight um you know most of the time we're 180s and we're well under that but when you get those massive runs and those big trains coming you can get there so I think it's just um precaution I think is probably the best way to describe it I think they just took an extra measure of hey let's be on the good side of this just in case we'll go to Zach and then come down here to Jerry Zach nascar.com Michael you've spent a lot of time in front row the success though that you've had over the last couple of years and especially this year how has that knowing that this is going to be the last year with them and I know you're still going uh bringing Travis along with you to Spire but has it impacted your perspective on the success that you are having with this 34 group before um this final third of the Season wraps up yeah for sure I think you never take it for granted right um you know we we come down here this weekend knowing that we're going to have a shot out of the poll and you're going to start over next year and you're going to have to build to that and you don't know that you know and so you know driving down here and just thinking about it like yeah you you put it in perspective of you know tomorrow's not guaranteed and Success is Not Guaranteed as you guys have seen my career I spent a lot of it having very little success so you know I think it's just more of enjoying the process and and the moment and I'm thankful that we've our cars have been good and and we've had some strong runs I'm if anything I'm disa pointed um about this season because I think we've been faster and ran better than we've shown you know from a point standpoint and winning races because you know just with mistakes and some of those on me and some of those that we've just had which you have throughout the year but you know I felt like Atlanta Was a Race that we could have won and Tega obviously Was a Race that we put ourselves in position to win and and there's been a handful of others that have just gotten away from us and so that's a little bit dis disappointing on the last year because I so badly want to win and get us locked into the playoffs and in looking at the playoffs with the way that the rounds are set up and the tracks that are in it I mean there's a lot of high expectations but you got to get there and we haven't got there and now I feel like you know we're in that last two weeks and we got to make it happen and this is the first step to making it happen I mean there's a good chance I can be sitting here with you tomorrow night and we talking about being in the playoffs and having Walkins Glenn in there and having and you go through the rounds and all of a sudden this conversation changes but it's racing and we've seen the highs and lows of it and I've been a part of the highs and lows of it and so you just don't take it for granted you enjoy the the moment and the process and you know in two weeks we'll know come over here to Jerry Jerry Jordan kicking the tire side now you may not be able to answer this but last week you didn't have the airjack system on the card I don't know if you do you have it this week do you know no okay I do know but yeah okay so one of the things I'll just ask you is some teams that that tried it you know two of their two or three of their cars did it two two cars didn't they were experimenting um and and some said even that possibly for Daytona uh because of the weight on that do you think that there's that pound and a half actually might give an advantage somehow of low down Force you know or low center of gravity by that much um yes and no I think weight always matters so you're always trying to do as much as you can and you don't want to put anything on your car that's heavy or unnecessary um but for us more than anything is just this is kind of the approach that we take we'll let the big teams figure it out and spend the money first and if they think it's good then we'll add it um that's the nice thing about it not being mandatory I mean yes it'd be unfortunate if you're sitting on four flat tires and you know you can't get back to the pits but as you guys know if that happens you're pretty much done anyways even if you come out there and they Jack you up and you drive back you're still a lap or two down and you know so the probability of that being a something that you need and it actually be effective we'd rather watch and see if it's effective for other people first and I think that's probably why you saw teams split it too is um there they're doing the same process but just doing it internally are there any other questions for Michael all right thanks for time good luck tomorrow thank you e