1 week agoSpire Motorsports driver Michael McDowell earned a starting position of seventh for this week's Shriners Children's 500 at Phoenix Raceway. This start position matches McDowell's highest of his Cup career from the March 2023 Cup event at Phoenix. In 28 races completed at the Arizona track, McDowell has five top-20 finishes, with three of them being scored in the last four Cup events at the site. In practice, McDowell ranked 31st in overall lap averages but surprisingly displayed top-10 speeds in all other categories. McDowell's recent Phoenix history and Spire equipment do show promise to gathering a solid finish, but he does have low upside from his starting position. Overall, McDowell works best as a tournament play likely to have low ownership, who can pay off with a top-10 finish.
--Sean Engel - RotoBallerSource: DriverAverages.com
2 weeks agoFor all the hype Michael McDowell gets as a road-racing pro, Carson Hocevar really showed him up in Austin qualifying on Saturday as Hocevar qualified fourth to McDowell's 16th. Admittedly, that is the best McDowell has ever qualified here and he did finish better than he started in all his previous races except last year, when he had a mechanical DNF. The Spire Motorsports cars did show speed on road courses last year, especially at Watkins Glen, where they managed to place all three cars in the top 10, so McDowell has a possible shot at a top-10 finish. There's definitely a little DFS value, but Hocevar seems a lot more likely to both win and outrun McDowell. McDowell is still a better choice for DFS than Hocevar, even though he is more expensive, specifically because he qualified worse.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
3 weeks agoWhen Michael McDowell left Front Row Motorsports to go to Spire Motorsports, it pretty much instantly ended his run of dominance in drafting track qualifying as Spire's Chevies are significantly slower than FRM's Fords were last year. In fact, Spire seemed to be arguably the slowest multi-car chartered team in the Daytona 500 as the three Spire drivers ran in the back together for much of the race and they didn't have much speed on these tracks last year either. Because of his 27 laps led in last year's race and his weak 24th place qualifying run, he will be a tempting selection for a lot of DFS players but it seems the only reason he had so much speed on those tracks last year was the Ford dominance. Now that he has signed with an uncompetitive team on these tracks, don't expect him to do much.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
4 weeks agoAlthough Michael McDowell has a reputation as a drafting expert because of his 2021 Daytona 500 win, the fact that he has eight top-10 finishes there and no more than four on any other track make him one to avoid this year. His actual finishing record at Daytona has not been so hot, as he has finished 28th or worse in four of his last five starts there and now he is driving for a Spire Motorsports team that has seemed to not be as fast as Front Row Motorsports on drafting tracks. However, he has brought his FRM crew chief Travis Peterson with him. McDowell was mostly a non-factor in his Duel race, starting ninth and finishing 12th en route to a 25th-place starting position in the Daytona 500. The fact that he is starting 25th indicates there is likely some DFS value, especially since he only costs $7,100, but there are probably better options elsewhere.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
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