Shane McDowell finding rewards in varying roles

Driver Dale McDowell has had a memorable 2014 season thus far. Those memories have been highlighted by a victory in Dirt Late Model racing’s most lucrative event at the famed Eldora Speedway back in early June.

Charged with preparing McDowell’s cars is his younger brother. Shane McDowell has been involved in racing for virtually his entire life, but this season ranks as one of the duos best with multiple feature wins including the $100,000 jackpot in ‘The Dream’.

Aside from Shane’s duties with his brother, he also serves as an advisor and crew chief for up-and-coming racers within the Team Dillon Racing and Richard Childress Racing organizations.

“We’ve had a really good year,” Shane McDowell says of this season’s success. “We’ve been fortunate with what Team Dillon Racing and RCR let’s us do in working with Austin and Ty and Mike Dillon and their mom Tina. And obviously, Richard supports us and what we do. But it’s been a really good year and it’s been fun. We hope we can keep it going.”

McDowell and his driving brother will make their way back to Eldora this weekend in hopes of scoring their second big victory of the season on the half-mile in the sport’s most prestigious race, the World 100.

“We’ve won eight or nine so far this year and we could have won a couple more,” McDowell said. “It’s been really good and maybe we can keep our little streak rolling here when we go to Eldora next week.”

McDowell works with drivers that have a wide variety of experience levels. These range from Dale, who has raced at the sport’s highest level for years, to the Dillon brothers who compete as regulars in NASCAR, to youngsters who are just getting starting on clay surfaces.

So how does a crew chief adapt to such varying degrees of experience and abilities?

“It helps that me and Dale have raced together for so long that we can keep our cars competitive,” McDowell explained. “With Ty and Austin getting to race with us less and less, it’s harder to keep up with the competition sometimes. We were able to have success with them together when they were racing more. But when you’re only doing it every couple of months, and they still try to go line up with the big guys at one of these shows, it’s tough.

“We need to race somebody to help us keep up with the competition so that when they do get in a car, their talents can shine. We(he and Dale) have to race more to help Team Dillon keep up with the competition. It works out well and we’re able to carry that over to all our driver development programs. On the top level with Dale, we’re trying to keep up with guys who do it 70 times a year where we’re running 20-30 times a year. With Team Dillon, we’ll race over a 100 times a year, but with what me and Dale do, it’s tough to keep up.”

McDowell’s vast experience in the sport almost literally dates back to his infancy and includes some time of his own behind the wheel.

“I’ve been in it all my life,” the crew chief explained. “There’s eight years between me and Dale and he started when he was 14 so that put me at age 6. I started going when I was six months old. I was born in ’74 and my dad started racing in ’73-’74. I raced some on my own but it got to where the expense of it was too much so we kind of teamed up on our driving school. We got some sponsorship and I started crew chiefing when he had a regular job so I was taking care of the racing equipment and just trying to learn for myself. I travelled with him for a year and financially it just sort of worked out for me to keep doing that. It was all we could do for us to piece it together like that.”

After joining Team Dillon Racing, both McDowell brothers took on mentoring roles for young drivers looking to work their way up the racing ladder. Texan Blake Shapiro will run 20-25 times this season with driving tips from Dale and car preparation from Shane. Young female drivers Kate Dallenbach(daughter of former racer and current broadcaster Wally Dallenbach) and Ahana Parkhurst also compete out of the Dillon stable.

“Right now, we have about seven different drivers that we work with, from as green as you can get all the way up to an experienced driver like Dale,” Shane McDowell points out.

Ultimately, McDowell finds his work to be both challenging and rewarding.

“It’s a lot of hard work and a lot of grueling hours,” he declared. “I’m blessed to be able to do what I do. It’s my passion. It’s what I love to do and I’m fortunate to be able to make a living at it. When you put in so much work and so many hours, with the competition this unbelievably tight, it makes you feel good to line up at Lucas Oil race or a World of Outlaws race or one of our crown jewel races and be competitive or to even win one of those things. There’s nothing any more satisfying than that.”