Michael McDowell was excellent during Sunday’s race at Watkins Glen International. The Spire Motorsports driver brought his No. 71 Chevrolet Camaro home second, his best finish of the season and first top-five in nine races.
Entering the week 23rd in points, it’s easy to see how the No. 71 team’s day was close to ideal for their hopes to make the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series Chase. Despite an all-around solid run, McDowell somehow finds himself five points worse off than he was before the green flag.
Leaving Watkins Glen, McDowell is 21st in points – two positions higher than he was coming in. Entering the race he trailed 16th-place Chase Briscoe by 53 points. He now sits 58 points behind new 16th-place driver Shane van Gisbergen, a five-point loss.
It makes sense for McDowell to fall behind Shane van Gisbergen, the one driver who finished above him. McDowell’s Chase hopes just so happen to be complicated by that one driver now occupying the cutoff line. When the driver you’re chasing beats you, it’s mathematically sound that you’d lose ground on them. But that’s not the only factor behind McDowell’s five-point slide.
Track Position and Stage Points
The No. 71 team employed a risky pit strategy to get their second-place finish. It was the same one utilized by Shane van Gisbergen’s No. 97 Trackhouse Racing team to garner them the win. Both teams surrendered track position in favor of fresh tires, enabling them to run down leader Ty Gibbs in the final stage.
The tradeoff of this strategy was a missed opportunity for stage points. Whereas van Gisbergen managed to win Stage 2 and pick up three more points in Stage 1 for a total of 13, McDowell’s haul was limited to just one stage point in Stage 1. Thus, some of the drivers who optimized track position earlier in the race walked away with a better points day than McDowell.
The Benefits of Finishing Second
On paper, McDowell was second best on Sunday. Due to stage points, his 36-point takeaway was not the second highest. In addition to Shane van Gisbergen, four other drivers scored more points than McDowell despite finishing lower: Ty Gibbs (3rd), Tyler Reddick (5th), Austin Dillon (6th), and Austin Cindric (9th). A.J. Allmendinger (7th) also matched McDowell’s 36-point total.
“Second is awesome,” McDowell said after Sunday’s race. “It’s great to get momentum back on our side. We needed it after a rough few weeks, but we wanted to get to victory lane.” As it turns out, the 15 more points awarded to a race winner over the runner-up were the difference between McDowell’s season improving markedly or treading water.
Michael McDowell has made the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs twice before the format changed for this season. In 2021 he finished 16th in the standings following his Daytona 500 win, and in 2023 he placed 15th after winning the Indianapolis road course race.
