Organization to utilize Team Penske alliance in 2015
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Leavine Family Racing team owner Bob Leavine recalls when he signed his driver Michael McDowell with a fondness that stems from respect on and off the track.
“We interviewed four drivers and I had seen Michael in the garage,” Levine said during Charlotte Media Tour on Wednesday. “The time he took with fans was in line with our family values, the way he treated people.
“A good driver, and he wasn’t driving the best cars in the world. I knew that we didn’t have many, but what we were putting on the track was good. So I just thought that it would be a good fit from what we were trying to accomplish.”
Fast forward a year and the small family-owned Sprint Cup Series team is headed in a direction that both the driver and team are excited about.
McDowell, 29, is expected to run a minimum of 20 Sprint Cup Series races in 2015, trumping last year’s number. Last season, he qualified for all but three Cup events that he attempted, nabbing notable finishes at Daytona (seventh) and Bristol (18th), a victory that McDowell said he would have celebrated by popping champagne at his hauler if any had been available.
“The thing about that (Bristol) race for us is we ran where we finished most of the day,” McDowell said with a smile. “For a small Sprint Cup team to be in the teens and the low 20s, that’s a great day for us.
“For us, to run where we’ve run all night and to finish it off was definitely a confidence builder and momentum for us.”
The No. 95 driver appears to be sticking with the big boys for now, despite his strong finishes in the few races run with XFINITY Series in 2014.
“I love running in the XFINITY Series. I’ve had a lot of great runs in the last few years,” McDowell said. “… I hope that I’ll have a few opportunities again to run some races, but there’s nothing permanent on the schedule right now. But having a part-time schedule in the Sprint Cup Series gives me a little bit of flexibility.
“Now with a tighter alliance with Team Penske and a tighter alliance with Ford, it’s eliminated some of the opportunities with Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota and those things.”
This season marks the second season of the organization’s technical alliance with Team Penske, a partnership that Leavine thinks will aid the 14-person team on improving from last season.
“It’s just a different mindset,” Leavine said. “… Roger (Penske) wasn’t willing to accept anything less than perfect. And that’s contagious.”
The fever seems to have spread to the organization’s shop in Concord, North Carolina, as Leavine describes the team’s readiness to improve and be even more competitive next season.
And that’s just what McDowell plans to do.
“We want to be in the mix and we want to be in the conversation and we feel like at the end of the year last year, we were getting to that point,” McDowell said. “But we’d just like to be able to do that more consistently. And that’s the focus this year.
“You can’t always hit home runs, but if we could hit doubles every game and eventually we’re going to get a few home runs in there and that’s really what we’re focused on.”