McDowell trying to leave Texas crash behind him

Michael McDowell was making an appearance at a Toyota dealership Monday when the man approached him, leading with the one question the driver has heard too many times to count. "Aren't you," the man asked the Nationwide Series rookie, "that guy who crashed at Texas?"

And of course McDowell smiled and shook his hand and said yes, he was. One year later, it's still hard to shake the imagery of one of the most spectacular accidents in recent NASCAR history -- the blue-and-white car wiggling as it entered the corner on a qualifying run at Texas Motor Speedway, slamming into the outside wall, and rolling a dozen times before the smoldering husk of a vehicle finally came to rest. It was a complete validation of the improved safety systems implemented within the current Sprint Cup chassis. And it was an event that's come to define McDowell, who walked away uninjured from the crash.

Texas tumble

Michael McDowell flipped his No. 00 Cup car a dozen times in a spectacular qualifying crash last year at Texas Motor Speedway.

• Video: Watch the crash

In the year since, much has changed for the 24-year-old native of Glendale, Ariz. His program at Michael Waltrip Racing was shuttered due to a lack of sponsorship. He hooked on with JTG/Daugherty Racing, and currently drives the No. 47 car on the Nationwide Series. There have been signs of progress, like a third-place qualifying result at California and a sixth-place finish at Las Vegas. But just mention McDowell's name, and the Texas crash is still there, at the forefront of many minds -- except, that is, his own.

"I've got a solution for it," McDowell said. "All I've got to do is go sit on the pole at Texas, and then we won't have to worry about it anymore. People won't be like, 'Are you scared? Do you think about it? Do you worry about it?' We go sit on the pole, then it will be evident that we don't care."

It's been sort of a blessing and a curse. McDowell's crash last year at Texas, in just his second career Sprint Cup event, earned the driver an instant degree of celebrity, landing him on news magazines and morning shows that rarely if ever discuss the sport. It gave him a national audience to pitch his race team, his car sponsor and himself. But is also colored many perceptions of him, making McDowell infamous in the eyes of casual sports fans for something no driver wants to be known for -- wrecking a car.

"It's tough, because you don't want the attention, you really don't," he said. "What are you getting attention for, for wrecking a race car, which I always thought was a little crazy. But at the same time, I was trying to build a brand, and Michael Waltrip Racing was trying to build a brand, and we had Aaron's on the car, and it gave us a window of opportunity to tell the world who I am and about the race team. You couldn't bypass the opportunity that was given to us, but at the same time as a driver, it kind of hurts your ego a little bit, because all these folks want to talk to you because you wrecked a race car, not because you spent your whole life sort of getting to this point." (Continued)