The 2025 NASCAR Cup season will see a few drivers in new environments. Among them is Michael McDowell, who moves from Front Row Motorsports to Spire Motorsports in the #71 car, replacing Zane Smith. Alongside him will be Justin Haley and Carson Hocevar. Of course, moving to a new team is not easy, as the driver has to acclimatize to a new environment. Additionally, there are also expectations lumped on the new recruits.

On the subject of McDowell, he has two wins to his name, a Daytona 500 triumph and a road course win at Indianapolis. In the buildup to the new season, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and other NASCAR insiders talked about him. This largely pertained to the team’s total win odds for the upcoming season, and McDowell’s name popped up as Spire Motorsports’ line for total wins was 1.5.

The podcasters felt that Spire Motorsports’ number was optimistic and didn’t see any of their three drivers getting the team over 1.5 wins in 2025. Dale Jr., Alex Timms (Tampa Timms), and T.J Majors highlighted that the road to victory will be a lot tougher for the 40-year-old McDowell in particular. The fact that he is driving for a new team, is just one of many obstacles that he will have to overcome in 2025.

How tough is the competition for Michael McDowell?

Speaking on the Dale Jr Download, Alex Timms said, “McDowell, he can win any road course, I think. He can win at superspeedways, but it’s a brand new team, I don’t like that.” Michael McDowell was a surprise Daytona 500 winner and it proved to be a great moment for the sport. However, a switch to a new team could make winning such races harder as it is his first season there. To add to that, Spire Motorsports have just one Cup Series win in their history, from Justin Haley at the 2019 Coke Zero Sugar 400 in Daytona.

T.J Majors added, “Road course racing has got a lot harder, now that we’re adding in. Now you got Shane in there, Zilisch running at times.” The other track type where McDowell notched up a win was road courses. The road course master and Supercar Champion Shane van Gisbergen will be joining the Cup Series full-time with Trackhouse Racing’s #88. He won his first-ever NASCAR race at Chicago Street in 2023 and followed that up with a 2nd place finish at Watkins Glen in 2024. Competition for road courses is very stiff, however, the odds for Spire to win a race are higher than Front Row Motorsports, McDowell’s previous team.

Speaking on how absurd the odds look, Dale Jr. added, “It’s almost flipped, where Spire’s at 1 and a half, Front Row’s at 0.5.” Alex Timms concurred with him, adding, “It should be flipped, that should be how it is. The price for the under is minus 250. It’s unbettable, but I think it hits anyway.”

However, Timms did add that without McDowell, Front Row could struggle. “Front Row, I actually do like the under on Front Row. It’s a risk, they got some speed but you have three drivers, without McDowell, that really haven’t come close to winning. I’ll take that bet.” Timms has a good point here as the last time Front Row Motorsports won a Cup race that wasn’t driven by Michael McDowell was in 2016 when Chris Buescher won in Pocono.

The bottom line is that Spire Motorsports and McDowell have their work cut out. Especially since he has to contend with road course ringers like Shane van Gisbergen and Connor Zilisch. SVG is the biggest threat since he is familiar with the NASCAR Cup car. Meanwhile, Zilisch is a star who is steadily rising and already impressed during his Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona outing. However, McDowell will look to put on the best show possible and to prepare for that, he will be running the Truck Series race at Daytona.

This will be McDowell’s third-ever race in the NASCAR Truck Series, where he had a best finish of 14th at New Hampshire. With Spire, it could be his shot at redemption and a chance to get himself up to speed before the Daytona 500. What works in his favor, is that he has won the Daytona 500 in 2021, so he could be a potential favorite.