In 2024, with Front Row Motorsports, Michael McDowell won his first career Cup pole at Atlanta and almost won his third career Cup race at Talladega. But next season, the 39-year-old Arizona native will take this same form and all his efforts to the #71 seat at Spire Motorsports.

McDowell officially kicked the 2025 silly season into high gear when he was announced as Zane Smith’s replacement at Spire. All that hype was followed by the news of Stewart-Haas Racing’s impending foreclosure, with all four drivers becoming potential free agents a few weeks later. Ironically, it did not take long for FRM to find McDowell’s successor in that very situation in Noah Gragson. 

With these developments in the background, before he gets ready to defend his Brickyard crown, McDowell paints a concerning picture for Bob Pockrass. The type that might lead some to speculate if his current race team is holding grudges over a split predetermined well in advance.

Michael McDowell feels the information drought at FRM

Spire Motorsports’ future #71 driver has tread an unconventional path in reaching the pinnacle of the NASCAR Cup Series. If anything, looking at his early career trajectory, most would’ve singled out McDowell to be an open-wheel racer in the future. Contrary to that narrative, his first full-time season in NASCAR came with Eddie Sharp Racing in the 2007 Truck Series, and since then McDowell has never looked back for once. Switching over from a different discipline of motorsports, he faced his considerable share of early struggles. After making his Cup debut with Michael Waltrip Racing in 2008, McDowell drove for about a dozen organizations before finding a permanent home at Front Row in 2018.

Before joining FRM, his best-ever placing was a P7 at the 2014 Coke Zero 400, alongside a handful of top-10s scattered across different race teams. Three years later, in 2021, Michael won his first Cup race—the Daytona 500. Another three years later, he showcased his road course expertise and won at the Brickyard the last time NASCAR ran its 2.439-mile road course configuration. Additionally, 90% of McDowell’s career top-5s came with Front Row.

This growth trajectory leads many to believe Bob Jenkins’ race team could have been the perfect match for Michael McDowell. But after five years and two playoff appearances, it would appear the ones involved warrant a change. And they want it fast. In a recent 1-on-1 conversation with Bob Pockrass of FOX, McDowell told him why he announced his switch so early and how it stopped the “information flow” for his #34 team.

McDowell explains that “as far as announcing it goes, that was a decision Front Row wanted to make… I was good waiting until, you know, later in the season. But they wanted to get in front of it to you know, try to lock in their next driver. And obviously, they had plans for that charter and different things. So that wasn’t really my plan. That was theirs so. But yeah, it was one of those deals that you deal with… It’s not always unicorn and rainbows. But it’s going fine.” Regardless, he also said that he “felt good about it, signing early, because you guys have seen, it’s been a crazy silly season.”

As for the “unicorn and rainbows” comment, McDowell cleared that part out when Pockrass asked if he’s been receiving less information due to the announced move happening so far ahead of the 2025 schedule. Pockrass probed: “Have you been getting only 80 percent of the information?”

To answer this, Michael McDowell elaborated, “I feel like maybe 10% of the information. I mean, It’s been tough. There’s no doubt about it. And it’s not just one thing, or one person or one entity, right? There’s a lot of moving parts and a lot of factors. So we know it was not ideal. But we knew it was going to be tough going into it.”

FRM is still what some would call a small-budget organization. Although they boast four NASCAR Cup Series victories, it took the team almost two decades to achieve that feat. They have been reported to operate with only around 60 employees and are technically allied with Tier 1 Ford Performance representatives, Team Penske. Out of their four race wins, three have come on tracks normally classified as superspeedways, i.e., tracks 2 miles and above, and McDowell gave the team their only other on the Indianapolis road course last year.

The departure of Michael McDowell means their new roster will now be eager to chalk off a fresh start at FRM. Still, in his rookie premier-tier season, Todd Gilliland has yet to grab himself a race win in the #38 machine. The same goes for his future teammate, Noah Gragson, who is also winless and will join his fourth race team in four years. The positives are that Front Row’s young duo can only do better than their current fortunes, with McDowell going the other way at Spire, who desperately needs some leadership and experience—two things one receives in abundance with a driver like Michael McDowell.

But as for Noah Gragson? He had a lot of positives to draw from when he spoke to Bob Pockrass in another interview about his aspirations for his new race team.

Can Noah Gragson and Todd Gilliland finally find Victory Lane at Front Row?

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Stewart-Haas’ #10 driver has been widely touted as one of the younger drivers inching at the cusp of full-time glory. But controversies and circumstances seem to have pulled wins away from Noah more than once. If last year’s debacle with Legacy Motor Club was not enough, his misfortunes were vibrantly on display once again when news broke of Stewart-Haas’s disintegration back in May.

But 2025 will surely signal optimism at FRM, as Gragson will reunite with an old ally in Gilliland, with whom he was once teammates at Kyle Busch Motorsports. Noah told Pockrass, “Being able to be teammates with Todd back at Kyle Busch Motorsports, we’ve been buddies ever since. And when I told him, “Hey, I’m thinking about coming over here,” he had a lot of positive stuff to say.”

“Nonetheless, there are challenging times, no doubt, but that’s anywhere in the Cup Series. It’s a grind to be able to race 38 weekends of the year and be on top of your game each and every weekend and go to the race track and be in contention.” opined Gragson. But he also hinted at how Todd was happy to “have the support from Bob and [GM] Jerry [Freeze] and everybody else included at Front Row.” And “after having a conversation with Todd, it added some extra optimism.” As it should.

However, on the flip side, over at Spire Motorsports, Michael McDowell will be teaming up alongside #7 driver Corey LaJoie and 2024 ROTY candidate Carson Hocevar. Their future teammate had earlier elaborated his reasons for signing with the race team, stating, “I think more than anything, I didn’t feel like I wanted to continue to go year-to-year (on contracts) like I have… That wasn’t a great spot for me or my family to be in, especially with a lot of uncertainty within the sport and with all the things that are going on.”

It is safe to say that with this multi-year contract at Spire, Michael McDowell has safely secured his family’s future. Will he secure Spire’s second-ever win as a NASCAR organization next year? Let us know in the comments below.