Pitbull to perform concert at Busch Light Clash

Posted on December 8, 2021 by Official NASCAR Release

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — NASCAR and Coca-Cola are bringing the party to the Busch Light Clash at the Coliseum. They announced today that multiplatinum recording artist and NASCAR team owner Pitbull will perform a 45-minute concert before the main event on Feb. 6 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

“Pitbull transcends cultures and generations with his positive, upbeat performances and his humanitarian work away from the stage and studio,” said Patrick Rogers, NASCAR vice president of marketing services. “We’re excited that he’s providing his star power to this historic day for our sport.”

Pitbull is a GRAMMY®-winning independent international superstar, education advocate, business entrepreneur and motivational speaker. With countless awards, dozens of international number ones, hundreds of gold and platinum certifications, millions of single sales, 25 million album sales, and cumulative video views in excess of 15 billion, one of the most impressive careers in music history set the stage for him to make true change. Dedicated to making a positive impact in the world, Pitbull has established SLAM tuition free public charter schools.

Moreover, Pitbull is a partner of Trackhouse Racing with team founder Justin Marks. Trackhouse fields cars in the NASCAR Cup Series for drivers Daniel Suarez and Ross Chastain who will compete in the Clash.

“This is history in the making to be part of this special Los Angeles Coliseum NASCAR event,” said Armando Christian Perez (Pitbull). “It’s an honor to integrate culture, music and NASCAR racing as the universal language to unite new audiences around the world.”

Pitbull’s concert at the Busch Light Clash at the Coliseum is being presented by NASCAR premier partner Coca-Cola, which boasts an unmatched track record of uniting people on and off the track.

“The Coca-Cola Company has been sharing incredible moments with race fans for decades and we look forward to elevating the live event experience through one of our shared passions, live music,” said John Mount, Vice President Entertainment and Sports Marketing, The Coca-Cola Company. “This collaboration with NASCAR and Pitbull will make a historic event at the L.A. Coliseum even more special and will provide fans some Real Magic with a once-in-a-lifetime moment to share an ice-cold Coca-Cola with family and friends.”

The Busch Light Clash at the Coliseum on Sunday, Feb. 6, will be the culmination of a two-day celebration of speed inside the historic Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. NASCAR is constructing a temporary, quarter-mile track inside “The World’s Greatest Stadium” for this season-opening exhibition, which is being held outside of Daytona Beach, Fla., for the first time.

Sunday’s action at the Coliseum begins at noon PST with the first of four heat races and two last-chance qualifying races that will determine the field of 23 cars for the main event. Shortly after 2 p.m. PST, Pitbull will perform and set the stage for the 150-lap main event, which begins at 3 p.m. PST. All of Sunday’s racing action will be broadcast live on FOX.

On Saturday, Feb. 5, fans can get a sneak peek at NASCAR’s newest venue by attending Busch Light Clash Qualifying. Gates open at 1 p.m. PST, with qualifying beginning at 5:30 p.m. PST.

Tickets for both days are on sale now at www.nascar.com/lacoliseum. Access to the NASCAR Fan Fest, offering interactive opportunities for fans of all ages, is included with all ticket purchases.

Posted on December 8, 2021December 8, 2021 by Reid Spencer

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Despite career-best four victories and a trip to the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, Alex Bowman characterized his 2021 season as a mixed bag.

“Last year (2020), we ended the season really consistent, finished sixth in points, had a really great playoff run, and nobody really cared,” Bowman said last week during an availability before the NASCAR Awards. “It was cool to finish sixth in points, but we only won one race.

“This year, we won four races, we won a race in the middle of the playoffs, but we finished bad in points — 14th — but we still won four races. So, looking back at it, I’d rather have the four trophies, but it would be nice to be able to figure out the consistency side of it.”

That’s something Bowman and crew chief Greg Ives have struggled to accomplish.

“I think, as a team, Greg and myself and everybody on our team has been asking ourselves that for four years now,” said Bowman, who plans to follow teammate Kyle Larson’s lead and run approximately 30 sprint-car races in 2022. “We’ve got to figure it out, and we’ve got some work to do to make it happen. There’s a lot changing next year, and hopefully that benefits us.”

Speaking of the trophies, Bowman’s grandfather clock from Martinsville Speedway just arrived this week.

“I always thought the Dover trophy (Miles the Monster) was the coolest trophy,” Bowman said. “I think the Monster is pretty cool. It turns out the Monster can hold a bottle of Jameson the same way it can hold a die-cast car, so I think that’s pretty neat. So I think that’s a cool one.

“But the clock’s also real cool. I stuck it in my office, kind of in the corner. It’s neat to have. It’s a process to set it up. I didn’t expect that, but I got that done and it’s pretty cool.”

Posted on December 8, 2021December 8, 2021 by Holly Cain

Editor’s Note: This continues the series of season reviews for the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs drivers.

Driver: Alex Bowman
Car: No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
Crew chief: Greg Ives
Final 2021 ranking: 14thKey stats: 4 wins, 8 top fives, 16 top 10s, 161 laps led

How 2021 ended:
Bowman was eliminated in the Round of 12 of the Cup Series Playoffs after a 38th-place DNF at Talladega Superspeedway put him in a difficult points position entering that round’s final race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval. Although eliminated from championship eligibility, Bowman dramatically won the penultimate event at Martinsville Speedway – punctuating a career-best four-win season.

RELATED: Alex Bowman through the years

Best race:
Bowman led 98 laps on his way to a career-first victory at Dover International Speedway. He led the race’s final 97 laps to beat teammate Kyle Larson — the eventual NASCAR Cup Series champion — to the flag by an impressive 2.017 seconds. It was his second victory of the year, marking the first time he’d ever won multiple NASCAR Cup Series races in a season.

Other season highlights:
Bowman’s four wins was a personal-best mark and came on a variety of tracks – from the 0.75-mile venue of Richmond Raceway, to the Dover “Monster Mile” to Pocono Raceway’s tricky 2.5-mile triangle to the Martinsville short track. And 2021 was also a year that saw career-high marks in top-five (eight) and top-10 (16) finishes.

Stat to know:
Bowman’s four-victory season stands out, as do his career-best statistical marks – only 2021 champ Larson won more races (10). Yet for as big as his trophy haul was, Bowman led only 161 laps – far off the totals he put up the last two years (200 in 2019 and 440 in 2020). His average finish (15.1) was also below the marks he established in the last two seasons (14.4 in 2019 and 14.7 in 2020).

MORE: All-time winners for Hendrick Motorsports

Quotable:
“Was confident coming into this year, but the thing that I’ve always circled is just try to be consistent, consistently running well. We’ve struggled to do that. It’s pretty hard for me to be super-excited right now (after his Martinsville win). The beginning of the season if you told me I was going to win four times, I’d be pretty excited. Wish we were going to Phoenix with a chance to win the championship. It has been painful to kind of go through the playoffs this way. But it’s awesome to at least start to end the year on a strong note.” – Bowman after his Martinsville Speedway victory on Oct. 31.

Looking ahead:
Career-high marks in 2021 are a good sign for the 28-year-old Bowman, who is looking to elevate his overall performance to contend for the championship. He has proven himself able to take home the race trophy, and in 2020 proved that he can race further into the title race. Now, it’s time to combine the efforts and challenge for the bigger trophy won by different teammates the last two seasons. Bowman finished sixth in the championship in 2020; advancing to the Round of 8 is a reasonable expectation given the current success of the Hendrick Motorsports organization.

Posted on December 7, 2021December 14, 2021 by Zack Albert

The recent deal between team owners Maury Gallagher and Richard Petty came into clearer focus Tuesday with the announcement that the newly formed organization will operate under the banner of Petty GMS Motorsports.

Petty GMS will field two chartered entries in the NASCAR Cup Series starting next year, with Ty Dillon and Erik Jones as the drivers. The details, plus a new team logo and car designs, were unveiled Tuesday afternoon at the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

Gallagher’s GMS Motorsports operation had announced June 17 that it intended to field a Cup Series entry in 2022, tapping Dillon as its driver nearly four months later. Last Wednesday, the two teams announced that Gallagher had purchased a majority interest in the Petty operation, an agreement that included the two Cup Series charters.

Tuesday brought the news that Petty, the series’ all-time win leader, will maintain a presence both in the team’s name and at the track. He was also in attendance for Tuesday’s announcement, and Gallagher said that Petty’s appearance schedule and his stature as the public face of the franchise was part of what sweetened the deal.

“Well, there’s there’s a number of elements to success, right?” Gallagher said. “You can’t save yourself into a profit, but you can spend yourself out of one. What that means is you need revenue, and Richard is a brand, a name that really is important. And I think he’ll admit to the same thing. And candidly, as he said, we stepped into the middle of the ongoing thing. There are sponsors and things that were really important to keep going, and he’s the reason they have the sponsors today. Yeah, the racing is important, too, but he’s a big component — more so perhaps than any other team. Richard Petty as your masthead, it’s a big deal.”

Jones will return for his second season in the No. 43 Chevrolet, but the group’s second entry will wear No. 42 — a car number with deep ties to the Petty family. Hall of Famer and patriarch Lee Petty drove the number to all but one of his 54 Cup Series wins, and Richard’s son, Kyle, flew the No. 42 in six of his eight big-league wins.

Keeping his hand in the business and his family name out front was also an enticing aspect for Petty, stock-car racing’s king. Not surprisingly, the team’s new logo blended GMS’ familiar orange with the trademark Petty Blue.

“It’s not for me. It’s for my kids, my grandkids, my great-grandkids from that standpoint,” Petty said of his ongoing role as team chairman after the sale. “… So you’ve got a little bit of control over your name. I think everybody, just like Joe Blow, would like to protect their name as much as they can.

“I ain’t going nowhere. When my toes turn up, that’s when I’m gone.”

The team indicated that previously announced driver-crew chief pairings will remain intact — Jones will work with former JR Motorsports crew chief Dave Elenz, and Dillon will partner with first-year crew chief Jerame Donley. Mike Beam will guide the organization’s day-to-day operations as the team president.

Beam also has long-running ties to the Petty family. He was crew chief for Kyle Petty during the first four full-time seasons of his Cup Series career, and he later worked with Richard Petty in the 1985 season. Now with GMS, he says that he and Gallagher bring a no-frills approach, evidenced by their reluctance to bask in the spotlight and by — Beam says in jest — Gallagher’s tendency toward ‘dad shoes.’

“You look at all the GMS wins and stuff, you’ll never see me and Maury hogging the picture,” Beam says. “No, we just want the trophy and the money. We’re gone. We’re good. We don’t need the pictures. The pictures, it does not go in the bank.”

GMS Racing plans to remain a full-time entrant in both the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and the ARCA Menards Series, according to the team. GMS has tallied 41 Camping World Truck wins, plus two series championships — with Johnny Sauter in 2016 and Sheldon Creed in 2020.

Beam said GMS Racing will field two full-time trucks, an operation that is independent of the Petty GMS group. The organization previously announced that Grant Enfinger would wheel the No. 23 Chevrolet in 2022 and ’23, and Jack Wood is set to compete for Sunoco Rookie of the Year honors next year in the No. 24 Chevy. Daniel Dye is scheduled to return to drive GMS Racing’s ARCA Menards Series entry.

On the Cup Series side, Petty GMS will move forward with two young racers with much still to prove. Jones, 25, has two Cup wins from his time with Joe Gibbs Racing, but he is still in the early stages of trying to bring the iconic No. 43 back to its former prominence. The 29-year-old Dillon is back on the Cup Series circuit full-time after a partial campaign over multiple series last year.

Gallagher’s GMS bunch made a significant impact on the Camping World Truck Series status quo, expanding rapidly and hoisting its first championship trophy less than four years after its 2013 debut. As far as the Cup Series expectations go under the Petty GMS umbrella, Gallagher says he has optimism for the new team’s future.

“One, two?” Gallagher joked, pointing out that his truck organization’s 1-2-3 finish in the 2020 standings had spoiled him. “You know, I think we can win. It’s easy for me to say, since I’m not going to be on the floor day to day doing it, but this is the best racers in the world. I don’t want to come across as being arrogant and the like, but it will take us a while to get there, but this crowd, they know what they’re doing.”

Posted on December 7, 2021December 7, 2021 by Marcus DiNitto

Kyle Larson is the favorite to repeat as the NASCAR Cup Series champion in 2022, per opening futures odds posted around the betting market. He’s followed by Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott, then drivers from Joe Gibbs Racing, with Team Penske after that. In other words, bookmakers anticipate next season playing out a lot like the recently completed 2021 campaign.

This remains despite the change on tap to the Next Gen car.

While the Next Gen car could even the playing field, emphasizing driver skill over equipment, SuperBook USA’s Ed Salmons — a top NASCAR oddsmaker — will believe it when he sees it.

“I’ll go with the assumptions I’ve seen the last couple years, and when I see something different on the track, I’ll go with that,” Salmons said. “Stuff that tells me otherwise, I’ll build that into the odds, but until I know something factual, I’ll just assume all the stuff I know is what I know from the other car.”

To some sharp NASCAR bettors, though, the change to the Next Gen car necessitates a new handicapping approach.

“Short answer is it’s going to change everything,” bettor Blake Phillips said. “… You have to throw out a lot of the previous results to an extent. … My approach next season is going to be very different in that I’m going to be looking at recent results much, much more heavily than historic results, and I’m going to be seeing how closely they align with previous results and how much they differ.”

To pro bettor Zack White, the change represents an opportunity to be a step ahead of the oddsmakers.

“It’s definitely going to be a challenge. Luckily it will be a challenge for the bookmakers, too,” White said in a text message. “I haven’t finalized a plan yet on how I will adjust handicapping, but obviously a lot of old data will have to be thrown out. We will see what kind of information I can get my eyes on before those first couple races and go from there.”

Here are early odds from two sportsbooks — SuperBook USA and NASCAR sponsor Barstool — to win the 2022 Cup title for drivers priced at 100-1 odds or less at the Las Vegas shop.

Driver	SuperBook	Barstool
Kyle Larson	+350	+250
Chase Elliott	+500	+500
Denny Hamlin	+800	+550
Kyle Busch	+800	+800
Ryan Blaney	+1000	+1000
William Byron	+1000	+1000
Martin Truex Jr	+1000	+550
Joey Logano	+1400	+1400
Kevin Harvick	+1400	+1400
Alex Bowman	+2000	+2000
Christopher Bell	+2000	+2500
Kurt Busch	+3000	+3000
Brad Keselowski	+3000	+1800
Tyler Reddick	+6000	+5000
Ross Chastain	+10000	+12500
Daniel Suarez	+10000	+12500
Austin Cindric	+10000	+6600

SHUFFLING OF THE FIELD?

Throughout the 2021 season, we spoke of the “Big Three” garages — Hendrick, Gibbs and Penske — but should the Next Gen car accomplish NASCAR’s goal of elevating the importance of driver skill, we may see teams with lighter budgets win more races.

“Guys like Tyler Reddick come to mind,” Phillips said. “I think that’s the guy who might suddenly be a lot more competitive than he is now when we go to the new package. But at the same time, this is a guy who has to drive that car as hard as it will go every single week, and I want to see if he can keep it clean.”

The inverse would also be true: Drivers who can thank their equipment for their past success may come back to the pack (Denny Hamlin is looking at you, Alex Bowman).

“I do expect we’re going to see some of these lower-funded teams and drivers who have a ton of talent but don’t have a ton of money being quite a bit more competitive, and I think we’re going to see some of the lower performers on the heavily funded teams dropping a little bit further down in the pack,” Phillips said.

Salmons is skeptical.

“The one thing I always hear whenever they wheel out a new car is the guys that never win, they’re going to have a chance now, it’s going to even the field,” the bookmaker said. “I believe the teams that have the most money spend the most and find stuff out first and get the advantages first. That’s just how it is. I could be dead wrong. But until I see it on the track, I’m not going to believe it.”

Marcus DiNitto, senior news editor at Gaming Today, has been covering sports business for more than 20 years and sports betting for about 10. NASCAR is among the many sports he bets — and typically loses — on. Follow him on Twitter; do not bet his picks.

Posted on December 7, 2021 by Staff Report

23XI Racing and McDonald’s announced Tuesday that their sponsorship agreement would grow in 2022, with the restaurant brand supporting the team’s entries for Bubba Wallace and Kurt Busch in the NASCAR Cup Series.

The team indicated that McDonald’s will serve as primary sponsor for several races each on Wallace’s No. 23 Toyota and Busch’s No. 45 Toyota next year, including the season-opening Daytona 500 (Feb. 20, 2:30 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM) for Wallace. The organization — co-owned by Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin — is expanding to a two-car operation for its second season.

RELATED: On the Move: Changes for 2022

McDonald’s was primary sponsor for Wallace in eight races last season, including his first Cup Series win Oct. 4 at Talladega Superspeedway. That victory brought a long-awaited return to Victory Lane for McDonald’s, which had last graced a Cup Series winner in 1994 with Jimmy Spencer — also at Talladega.

“McDonald’s has really stepped up over the years and played a large part in my career,” Wallace said in a news release provided by the team. “Getting McDonald’s back to Victory Lane for the first time since 1994 and having them on our Camry for my first win in the Cup Series this year was really special. To be a part of the McDonald’s family and be involved in programs like Black and Positively Golden and work toward similar goals both on and off the track also means a lot to me. I’m excited to continue to build on our relationship and get the 2022 season started with McDonald’s on our Camry TRD for the Daytona 500 — hopefully with another trip to Victory Lane.”

Busch was tapped as 23XI Racing’s newest driver on Aug. 27. Next year — his 22nd season at the Cup Series level — will mark his first events with McDonald’s as a primary sponsor.

“Racing with Monster Energy over the last decade together has been an incredible ride,” Busch said. “We win, we have fun, we promote together, and I am very grateful for their partnership. It feels like family racing for them, and I believe McDonald’s will have the same feel. The power of these brands elevates the No. 45 Camry TRD to a top-tier level before we even take the green flag. Let’s win!”

Posted on December 7, 2021 by Davey Segal

Editor’s Note: This continues the series of season reviews for the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs drivers.

Driver: Aric Almirola
Car: No. 10 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford Mustang
Crew chief: Mike Bugarewicz
Final 2021 ranking: 15th
Key stats: 1 win, 2 top fives, 5 top 10s, 51 laps led

How 2021 ended:
After qualifying for his fourth straight playoffs, Almirola’s finishes of 16th at Darlington Raceway, 14th at Richmond Raceway and 18th at Bristol Motor Speedway saw him exit the playoffs in the first round for the second time in three years.

But as the playoffs rolled on, Almirola improved, with both his top 10s coming in the final two races: sixth at Martinsville Speedway and Phoenix Raceway, his second-best results at those respective tracks.

Best race:
Almirola’s season highlight was winning at New Hampshire Motor Speedway this summer. Coming out of seemingly nowhere, Almirola’s speed was evident from the drop of the green flag. After starting 22nd, he made his way inside the top 10 and gained stage points in the second frame before quickly passing cars on his way to the lead battle as the laps wound down

In total, Almirola led 25 laps (including the last 20) before darkness forced the event to end eight laps early en route to his third career victory and first on a non-superspeedway.

Additional highlights:

• Kicked off the 2021 season winning the first Bluegreen Vacations Duel at Daytona International Speedway.

• A sixth-place finish at Richmond, his seventh top 10 there, gave the veteran his first top 10 of the season in April.

• Winning the pole at Nashville Superspeedway in June before finishing fourth gave Almirola the confidence to know the speed on 750 horsepower tracks was enough to not just contend, but win. And that’s exactly what he did at New Hampshire a month after Nashville, punching his playoff ticket.

Stat to know:
In the Cup Series’ first ever trip to Nashville Superspeedway, Almirola won the pole, marking only the third P1 start of his career. With qualifying only taking place eight times over the course of the year, Almirola showed his single lap speed was still prevalent in time trials.

Quotable:
“Nobody should have thought that we were going to win. Only our race team is the people that should have thought that or believed that. I mean, based on our performance especially this year, we haven’t been a contender to win. Coming into this race we never really gave anybody a reason to pick us, to be completely honest. I know that. It feels good to be the underdog and kind of come out of nowhere and have a race car like we did, kind of put it to ’em at the end of the race and drive off and go win this race.” – Almirola after his New Hampshire victory

Looking ahead:
Almirola has established himself as a perennial playoff driver at Stewart-Haas Racing but has only advanced past the first round twice in his four years with the organization. Making it to the Round of 12 or even the Round of 8 could be a realistic goal for Almirola and company in 2022 to improve on their steady performance over the last half decade.

With three superspeedway events in the regular season presenting themselves as some of Almirola’s best chances to score a win (plus one in the postseason), the playoffs remain the expectation for driver No. 10, but advancement throughout them also remains the goal.

While nothing official has been announced from Almirola or SHR, the two are expected to remain together for a fifth season with Smithfield returning as a primary sponsor of the No. 10 Ford. Add in the Next Gen car providing an opportunity for all drivers and teams to start from a proverbial square one (Almirola was the fastest on Day 2 of the Charlotte oval test) and Almirola/SHR will look to earn their fifth consecutive playoff berth and help reascend the organization to Victory Lane on a weekly basis after a one-win season in 2021.

Posted on December 7, 2021December 7, 2021 by Staff Report

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and JR Motorsports unveiled the No. 88 Hellmann’s Fridge Hunters Chevrolet paint scheme Earnhardt will run in the 2022 NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Martinsville Speedway on April 8.

The winning wrap was revealed Tuesday during JR Motorsports’ Unilever production shoot via Earnhardt’s Instagram live.

You voted, @Hellmanns delivered. Check out @DaleJr‘s 2022 @MartinsvilleSwy ride. @unileverusa | @Degree pic.twitter.com/nRLfRlhiQH

— JR Motorsports (@JRMotorsports) December 7, 2021

Earnhardt retired from full-time racing after the 2017 NASCAR Cup Series season. The 15-time National Motorsports Press Association Most Popular Driver Award winner is now a broadcaster for NBC Sports but still races once a year in the NASCAR Xfinity Series with his JR Motorsports team. In 2021, he finished 14th at Richmond Raceway.

Posted on December 6, 2021 by Reid Spencer

NASHVILLE — The overwhelming consensus among NASCAR Cup Series drivers is the new Next Gen race car, which will debut in 2022, is one of the most radical changes in the history of NASCAR’s premier division.

Defending Daytona 500 winner Michael McDowell believes the Next Gen car represents a more substantive change than, say, NASCAR’s move from bias-ply to radial tires some three decades ago.

McDowell comes from a sports-car background, and there are aspects of the Next Gen car that give him both a sense of comfort and a reason for optimism. The driver’s seat, for example, is shifted more toward the center of the car — more akin to its location in a sports car.

“You try not to be arrogant, cocky, boastful, but I’m just like that’s a proper race car with a proper foot box and a proper seat positioning,” McDowell said last Thursday at the Music City Center during an interview session with reporters before the NASCAR Awards. “It took me forever to get comfortable in our (Gen 6) cars, but when I jumped into that (Next Gen car), I felt right at home.

“A lot of guys have talked about the steering being too fast and twitchy and all that, but when you turn the wheel, the car’s supposed to turn, and it’s doing that. You don’t have huge sidewall deflection and laziness and all that we had in our old car. It feels like a proper race car to me.”

Posted on December 6, 2021December 17, 2021 by Staff Report

Editor’s Note: This is the first in the series of season reviews for the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs drivers.

Driver: Michael McDowell
Car: No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford Mustang
Crew chief: Drew Blickensderfer
Final 2021 ranking: 16th
Key stats: 1 win, 2 top fives, 5 top 10s, 26 laps led

How 2021 ended:
McDowell struggled as the regular season came to a close with one top-20 finish (Michigan) in the final seven races. Those woes carried over into the playoffs with three finishes outside the top 20 in the Round of 16 — including a crash 30 laps into the playoffs at Darlington — leading to his elimination. He averaged a 20.5 finish on the season — a career best, but worst among all the playoff drivers. He was eliminated alongside Tyler Reddick, Kurt Busch and Aric Almirola.

Best race:
At the season-opening Daytona 500, McDowell won his first-ever Cup Series race in 358 starts. Heading into the race, the odds of him winning were 66-1 (via BetMGM). McDowell didn’t lead during the entire 200-lap event until the very end. The veteran driver grabbed the lead in a wreck-filled last lap that saw Team Penske teammates Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski crash running 1-2. McDowell beat out reigning champion Chase Elliott and Austin Dillon for the win to become the eighth driver to earn their first win in “The Great American Race.” He also scored Front Row Motorsports’ third Cup victory.

Other season highlights:
• Three straight top 10s to kick off the 2021 season — first time in his career he had three straight top 10s in the Cup Series.

• Finished third in the GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. This was his second and last top-five finish of the season as he finished behind Brad Keselowski and William Byron.

• Five top 10s and 16th-place finish in the standings were both career bests in the Cup Series for McDowell.

Stat to know:
His three-race streak of consecutive top-10 finishes to open the season was a career first for McDowell and set him up very early on to surpass his previous season-best of four top 10s in 2020.

Quotable:
“This sport is so challenging and it’s week to week, and you’re only as good as your last race. So when you have a struggle and a difficult weekend, and you come to the office to do autograph requests or sign pictures, when you keep signing that same picture of you in Victory Lane at the Daytona 500, it’s a good reminder that when you’re struggling, it’s worth it.” — McDowell on the perspective he carries on a week-to-week basis.

Looking ahead:
McDowell will be back with Front Row for the 2022 season and he tested the Next Gen car for the organization at Charlotte last month. McDowell will continue to be a threat for wins and top fives on superspeedways and a sneaky factor on road courses with six of those on the Cup schedule for 2022. He will not have his crew chief back though as Drew Blickensderfer has left Front Row to pursue other options.