Michael McDowell is currently ranked 22 in the driver’s standings after racing in 25 races this season. The fact that he did not have a win this year, along with his underwhelming performance, has put him in the drop-off zone for the playoffs, but anything can happen at Darlington. Winning a race is his only chance of making it into the top 16, and looking at his recent performances, it looks dicey.

Coming in 30th after causing a wreck at Daytona, he fell four positions back in the points as Carson Hocevar took the lead from him. But despite his recent history being bad news, he does lead in one area. At Richmond, McDowell finished P15, which was disappointing considering that during the qualifiers, he frequently outqualified Ryan Blaney, who is currently P4 in the points, making him the fastest qualifier driving a Ford.

McDowell admits his weakness when it comes to the Richmond track

Currently, NASCAR has three manufacturers that provide cars to the teams. Toyota, Chevrolet, and Ford all compete in NASCAR with the philosophy of “win today, sell tomorrow,” which helps the sales of their cars. This year, Chevrolet drivers displayed the best performance as Kyle Larson took the qualifiers and finished in a mind-numbing 9.23 seconds.

On the other hand, the best time from Toyota was by Tyler Reddick, who qualified at 9.91 seconds. The surprising part is that among the Ford drivers, despite having playoff drivers like Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano, and Austin Cindric driving their cars, it was Michael McDowell who recorded the fastest time of 12.57 seconds.

These stats were shared on X, where the Front Row Motorsports No. 34 driver retweeted the post, saying, “That would look so much better if I wasn’t terrible at qualifying at Richmond.” According to McDowell, Richmond is not one of his best tracks when it comes to qualifying, but he still managed to be the fastest Ford around all the circuits in a single lap.

By looking at the stats, one can tell that it’s not the pace that McDowell’s car is missing, but maybe it’s the race where he ends up fumbling. Despite having the fastest Ford qualifying, he claims that he could have had better timing if it weren’t for his qualifying performances at Richmond.

There is no doubt that McDowell is a great racer; however, those haven’t been converted into wins. Having earned his fourth pole of the season at Daytona, McDowell spun from the lead, causing a huge wreck on the tracks.

Michael McDowell’s Daytona mishap

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Michael McDowell showed off his qualifying skills once again at Daytona by starting in pole position. This was soon turned into a disaster as Josh Berry decided to push him from the back, causing him to spin out. Once the No. 34 Ford lost control, it was Joey Logano’s car that was right behind him as they wrecked other cars around them.

Here is where he knew that his chances of getting into the playoffs were stolen from right in front of him. The crash led McDowell’s car to go airborne before landing back on the track, causing severe damage to his and Logano’s car. The crash involved 14 cars on Lap 152 of the race.

Along with McDowell and Logano, drivers, including Kyle Larson, Justin Haley, Tyler Reddick, and Bubba Wallace, were caught up in the wreck. After the caution period due to the crash, the race resumed with three laps to go. However, Josh Berry was involved in another crash caused by a bad push with two laps remaining, leading to an overtime finish.

With that said, do you expect another super quick qualifier from McDowell at Darlington for the last chance at the playoffs? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.