Dale McDowell
Dale McDowell and the Shane McDowell Racing team are proving those wrong who say there is no passing in modern day Dirt Late Model competition. The No. 17m Sweet-Bloomquist Race Car has scored three feature wins along with other top finishes so far in 2018 after starting deep in the field on several occasions.
McDowell scored his first win of the season on February 15th in a World of Outlaws Late Model Series race at Florida’s Volusia Speedway Park after taking the green flag for the feature from the 15th starting position. The driver known as ‘Mac Daddy’ picked up another win this past Saturday night after starting that 52-lap Spring Nationals-sanctioned event from tenth.
More than that, McDowell earned a third place result at Volusia on February 16th after beginning that WoO Late Models affair from 13th and a fourth in the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series-sanctioned Bama Bash at East Alabama Motor Speedway from the 17th starting spot.
The Chickamauga, Georgia driver is quick to give brother Shane McDowell and the SMR crew credit for the team’s improvement throughout each event night.
“Well, I’m glad we’re having good finishes, but I guess that says the driver needs to pick up his qualifying,” McDowell quipped with a laugh during an interview with InsideDirtRacing.com. “Shane and the guys make good adjustments. Our communication has been good and obviously it has ended in good results.”
But the 51-year-old driver admits that starting deep in the field does open the door for possible problems.
“Sometimes it goes the other way where you miss a little bit on adjustments,” McDowell explained. “It just worked out at Volusia where we were a little too tight early in qualifying and we couldn’t get the car to balance good in that condition but it was good in race conditions. We’ve seen that where we won’t vary enough on our qualifying efforts either in the adjustments or in the driver compartment. The only thing is, those hard charger points don’t pay any extra, they just make you work harder.”
The No. 17m car has shown the ability to win from mid-pack in 2018
The former winner of the Dirt Late Model Dream and World 100 says that the driver’s mindset going into a race in which he is starting in the middle of the field has to be one of making the best of the situation.
“Obviously, if you’re starting back there it’s because you’ve missed a little bit in qualifying or the heat race so you really don’t know,” he pointed out. “But once the race gets going, you kind of know what you’ve got. That’s what you hope for when you start back there, with the competition level being the way it is today, you just want to get up around the top-5 and then the rest is kind of a bonus from there. We’ve been fortunate to make the right adjustments and the right calls and have things go our way, but that could very well go the other way.”
The Shane McDowell Racing team in victory lane at Volunteer Speedway
Both the driver and setup guru on the No. 17m car have experience to rely on and that experience has served them well this season. And more, the close relationship shared by the brothers helps to bring about solid results.
“Most of the time you do rely on that experience,” McDowell said. “You just make your adjustments for the different track conditions. Sometimes he’s got to get on me. That’s the thing about our relationship- he can say ‘Hey, you’re not driving the car hard enough in that condition compared to everybody else’. I try to evaluate myself first and then as we discuss it, I’ll say that I feel like I’m doing everything that I can so then we go to work on the car. It’s a good relationship in that it doesn’t hurt my feelings when he tells me I need to do something different on the race track. Being able to have someone who can tell you that is a definite positive.”
McDowell joked that he needs to think like a younger driver when going out to qualify.
“I’ve definitely pointed that out in the past that I need to qualify like a 20-year-old and race like a veteran. I’m not sure I’ve figured that out yet though. The way this sport has migrated with the setups, there are times when you can be more aggressive early on in the night, and even in the features, than you could years ago. A few Red Bulls or something before qualifying might not hurt me.”
Shane McDowell
Aside from the wins garnered when starting further back, SMR also scored a Spring Nationals victory at Senoia(GA) Raceway after earning a front row spot in the preliminaries.
“Your night is a lot easier if you start up front, obviously,” McDowell said. “But you’ve still got to hit everything. If you miss it setup wise, it’s tough because the competition level is just unbelievable in today’s world. You go to these races and you don’t see as many repeat winners as you did years ago and that’s because the competition level is so tough now.”
No matter what the starting position, McDowell has won twice this season when using the so-called Droop Rule employed by the Southern Nationals family of racing series.
“I didn’t notice a major difference at Senoia but we did notice a little difference at Bulls Gap,” McDowell explained. “At Senoia, Shane just went through and made some minor adjustments and we didn’t see much difference. At Bulls Gap we did and had to change some things after our qualifying and our heat race. But it’s nothing huge so the hype of that is overdone. It’s the same for everybody, you’ve got to adjust around it.”
