Shane McDowell settling into role as team owner

Shane McDowell is no stranger to running a successful racing team. The highly regarded crew chief led the operation known as Team Dillon Racing for years. In that role, he built and maintained Dirt Late Model and Modified race cars for NASCAR drivers Austin and Ty Dillon as well as other drivers within the Richard Childress Racing development program.

At the same time, Shane prepared the racing machines that won major events such as the Dirt Late Model Dream at Eldora Speedway and numerous touring series races for brother Dale McDowell. Now, however, the 42-year-old has taken on a new and expanded role.

During the most recent off-season it was announced that McDowell had taken ownership of the team from the Dillon family. While the team continues to operate out of the same Welcome, NC shop located on the campus that contains NASCAR’s Richard Childress Racing, it is now McDowell’s to run on his own.

But according to the new owner, this is not an entirely different situation from what has been the case over recent seasons.

“The last couple of years, since Austin and Ty have not raced so much, it’s kind of been slowly transitioning that way,” McDowell explained in an interview with InsideDirtRacing.com. “It’s not as big of a deal as what it was. Their mom and dad owned it. Mike and Tina(Dillon) just couldn’t see the deal being worth it anymore. I owned a percentage of Team Dillon Racing and we’ve still got their support, our shop is still there at RCR. We just bought TDR out.”

Even though he may not have the same resources behind him as he had while more closely aligned with RCR, McDowell has partnered with other racers to get help. Kentucky’s Brandon Kinzer and his crew have formed an alliance with the team now known as Shane McDowell Racing.

“Without being able to align ourselves with good people, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do, but it’s a little tough because we’re doing it on our own,” McDowell said. “Some days, I don’t really have much help in my shop with me still being in North Carolina and Dale being in Chattanooga. He’s never at the shop so that makes it a little tough. But all in all, there’s not as much change as what everyone might think. It’s been going that way for a couple of years.”

Another partnership important to SMR is the one forged last year with Scott Bloomquist and Randy Sweet of Sweet-Bloomquist Race Cars.

“It’s been really good for us,” McDowell declared. “I’ve been up at Scott’s and worked a good bit. Hopefully in the future we can even do some more stuff. I’ve been going up there and working a good bit on some projects. I’ve learned a lot and I feel like we’ve made some gains on our program and helped him with his program. That’s what it’s all about, when it works good for everybody. They’ve been good to work with.”

McDowell plans for his team to have a similar schedule in 2017 as it has had over the past few seasons.

“It’s going to be kind of the same since Austin and Ty haven’t raced much with us the last couple of years,” the owner pointed out. “I’ve been able to run with Dale in 40 or 50 shows a year over the last couple of years. With both Austin and Ty running in the Cup series, that’s a lot on their schedules. We still may do some stuff with them later on in July, we’ll see. But my deal really hasn’t changed a whole lot. I don’t have any employees at the shop, I’m there by myself. But Brandon Kinzer’s guys go with me to help me at the track and have come to the shop a few times. But it’s not too bad, you just do what you can do.”

McDowell says that he is freed from many of the office responsibilities of team ownership by his wife.

“Sara takes care of all the paperwork, but it’s definitely never ending,” he declared. “You never get through, you just get to a stopping point and you load up and go race. It’s pretty grueling. It seems like if there was one other person in the shop things would go three times as fast. Everything in the shop, if I’m not doing it, it’s not getting done. That’s why I’m thankful for Brandon’s guys being able to come over and help me some. It’s a big transition. As long as we can keep ourselves aligned with good people, I love it and I don’t know of anything else I would want to do.”

As far their 2017 schedule, expect to see Dale McDowell on track at many of the same locations he has competed at over the past decade or so… as well as a few others.

“We’ll run 35 to 40 races or maybe a few more this year,” Shane McDowell said. “We’ll still do the big, key events. We may even do a few more of those just because of no other obligations of any other kind right now. We can maybe focus on a few of those races in the Midwest we haven’t been able to go to the last few years.”

McDowell says that his vast experience in the sport has prevented the role ownership from bringing about too many unexpected issues. But one thing is significantly different from before.

“There haven’t really been any big surprises because I’ve been there and I’ve basically managed that whole deal so it’s really not as big of a deal except the name change, other than I am liable for all the bills.”