NASCAR CUP SERIES TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES APRIL 25, 2026 |
Michael McDowell, driver of the No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series race weekend at Talladega Superspeedway. | MEDIA RESOURCES: Photo Gallery | Race AdvancesChevrolet Newsroom |
Media Availability Quotes: Talk a little bit about your team, where you guys are at this point in the season and what you’re looking forward to for Sunday’s race…“Yeah, we were really hoping to qualify. Talladega is just one of those racetracks where if it was going to rain out, this is an okay one to rain out, just because at first stage, you’re going to be saving fuel and you’ll have an opportunity to work your way towards the front or towards the middle. I don’t know the stats, but I think we got the last five out of six poles here, so we were kind of looking forward to trying to go out there and see what kind of speed we have, but we can’t control the weather. Just looking forward to Sunday. We’ve had a tough few weeks, so looking to try to get some momentum back on our side and get some points back up on the scoreboard because we definitely struggled the last few weeks. It’s a good weekend to get things turned around.” What do you think the state of the 71 team is right now? You say you haven’t had necessarily the speed you’re looking for… where do you think you guys are missing it? Do you have any idea?“Yeah, I think it’s just more execution and some setup things. Our teammates have had speed, so I don’t think it’s in our processes or our potential of the race car. We just haven’t maximized it. I think for us, probably more than anything, we sort of had a pretty good rhythm from last year. With the updated Chevy Camaro body, I feel like we just haven’t hit it quite as good, especially with the mile-and-a-halves. The good news is we have good data points. Every weekend, one of us has been quick, so I feel like we have the speed in our cars. We just haven’t hit it as a 71 group. We also have compounded our problems the last few weeks with pit road penalties and things like that, you know, when you take a not a great day and you make it a bad day. We just have to clean all those things up.” How much do you look at points after each race at this time of the season?“Well, they always matter. I think that where you’re at now is going to be that window of where you’re going to be, so you have to keep scoring points. I feel like even two or three races ago, I would have told you that we’re going to be right on that cutline, and it’ll probably be three of us racing for that cutline or close to it. We sort of knew that going into it. The points haven’t really shaken up much from what we thought they would be. We’re going to be close, and we can’t have weekends like we had last weekend.” NASCAR just announced that they made the news official that Jim France is stepping down as CEO. Your reaction to that news and when you heard it yesterday?“We had a little pre-meeting before they made the announcement with all the drivers. I think that it’s great for him. Obviously, he’s been dedicated to the sport for a long time, so for him to be able to not necessarily step away, but just step aside to allow Steve O’Donnell and Ben Kennedy to start to fill those roles and bring in the new management, I feel like it was what was going to happen at some point, right? You don’t do it forever. Honestly, I don’t think it changes a whole lot because we were sort of already there a little bit. I feel like it’s just kind of new titles. But I feel comfortable with where the sport’s at and where we’re going.” Were you a little surprised when you heard it, or like you said, you kind of saw this coming and that kind of thing?“Well, you guys have seen the last three or four years, Jim has been very active at NASCAR races, where three or four years prior to that, we probably didn’t see him quite as much. So I didn’t think that pace would stay up forever. He’s been not just NASCAR, but IMSA, motorcycle racing and everything for a long time, so it’s hard to keep that pace up, being at the racetrack every single week into your 70s and 80s has got to be tough.” How does NASCAR’s changes to the stage lengths for this weekend affect your team’s ability to try and execute the kind of strategy that you guys nearly pulled off at the end of the Daytona 500?“Yeah, there’s still a lot of strategy in play. I mean, we don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like. You know, you come up with theories and ideas, but a lot of it is based off of your competitors, too. Obviously, they’re not telling us what they’re going to do, so you kind of have plan A, plan B and plan C, depending on what everybody else does. But it’s definitely changed the flow of this race. You just kind of flip-flopped it to where that first stage is going to be where you do a lot of your fuel mileage saving and you kind of work your strategy. But there will still be opportunities for strategy in that second and third stage, as well. But yeah, I think everybody’s excited because there are some opportunities to do things, and we’ll see who takes those opportunities.” Even if they hadn’t changed the length of the final stage, would you guys still be able to try and execute the kind of fuel strategy you did at the end of the DAYTONA 500, just because you put it out there, everyone saw it, and now everyone knows that, oh, we might be able to try and stretch it to the end on fuel the way you guys looked like you could before that last caution came out?“I don’t know if anybody else could do it. I think we just executed it really well. We had the perfect scenario where we had a car behind us. We had Connor Zilisch behind us that was three or four laps down. And he didn’t know it, but he was pushing us along while we were saving fuel. It was just a perfect scenario. We were in the right spot at the right time, and once we realized we were getting the numbers that we were getting, it kind of opened that opportunity. But yeah, there won’t be an opportunity like that at the end of this race. But like I said, there are still some opportunities in the beginning.” Drivers have talked quite a bit that they like that this change has happened with the length of the stages. What’s your take on that, and how will fans see a slight difference for a better show this weekend?“Yeah, I’m optimistic, just like everybody else, that it’ll be a positive change. There’ll still be people that complain. That’s part of what we do, and I feel like that’s inevitable. There’s a lot of voices out there. I think the drivers probably like it because you know once you get into those final stages that, for the most part, you’re going to be hammer down. But I think that, just like the rules packages with the lower downforce and all those things, we just have to be cautious of how optimistic we get because there’s going to be guys that still short-fill in that final stage to get track position, and they’re still going to save fuel. There’s going to be people that flip the stages so that they have track position and they’ll have to save fuel, so it’s not a no-brainer where it’s like, I’ll throw a strategy out. There’s still going to be a lot of strategy playing out. There’s still going to be a lot of fuel saving happening.’ Just wanted to get your take on Talladega Superspeedway, not just the pure adrenaline rush, but something about this racetrack that excites you and piques your interest?“Yeah, it is exciting. It’s a fun race. When you make it to that final lap and you’re in those first few rows, it’s intense. There’s no doubt about it. The start-finish line is so far down here, it’s just hard to get to the finish line, right? You take the white and there’s still an eternity left of racing. I find it really fun. I’ve been pretty close here; had some good runs, but never gotten the checkered flag. Every time I come here, I look at the opportunity that’s in front of me that this could be a weekend that we could go win. I enjoy it. You don’t think about the risk while you’re out there or even right now. When you get home on Sunday evening, you’re like, okay, whether it was good or bad, you’re like, I survived Talladega and you move on to the next week. I enjoy this racetrack. I like the intensity. It’s produced some of the best finishes that we’ve seen in our sport. It’s also produced some of the scariest crashes we’ve seen in our sport. I feel like it’s just an iconic, historic NASCAR racetrack that we come to. Not everybody loves it, but I definitely love being here and like the opportunity that we have in front of us.” Thinking back to the first time you came here, what were your thoughts when you were going at full speed into turn one? What was your first thoughts there?“I remember in particular, I thought this was the dumbest racing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. You have to remember that I came from sportscars and IndyCar racing, and we barely are two-wide in those, for the most part. You just out-brake somebody, make the pass, it’s over. When I was three or four wide stuck in the middle of the pack, I was just like, this is like a suicide mission… what are we doing out here? It took me a while to embrace this style of racing because it’s so unique. When you come from other forms of motorsports and you come to Talladega or Daytona, it’s just so different than anything you’ve ever done. It took me a while to really learn to enjoy it because when you’re wedged up in the middle there, you just feel hopeless. You feel like, oh, there’s nothing I can do. If somebody makes a mistake in front of me, I’m just going to be in it. You’re thinking about all the wrong things. Now moving forward, I don’t ever feel that way. I’m like, oh, there’s an opportunity… I’m going to snake my way through here. I’m going to make a hole here. The first time coming here, I remember thinking, man, this is really, really dumb… what are we doing? But I’ve grown to love it and enjoy it, for sure.” Both of your teammates are in a position in their careers where a win would be very, very big for them. So if you’re in that situation where you’re ahead of one or both of them coming to the line, are you viewing them as more of a wingman or someone you’re going to have to really try hard to defend?“I think we had this scenario at Daytona (laughs). Yeah, I think that it’s a tough question to ask because every scenario is different. But the plan is for the Spire cars to work together to the best of our ability. But then there’s things at the end that happen that, I wouldn’t even say that it’s a matter of trying to win the race for your individual self or team, it’s more of trying to protect the win. So yeah, I don’t think about that. I also feel like I have something to prove, and it’s an opportunity for me, too. But I’m definitely going to help my teammates in any way that I can. And when it comes to the end of the races, everyone talks about it like, well, you plan for all these scenarios and they don’t always work out. Well, the scenario we planned for at Daytona worked out; we were in that position, but we didn’t execute. So I feel like that’s a learning experience for all of us, and we’ve got to make sure that we get to the finish line and not crash coming to the white.” Everyone always lumps Daytona and Talladega together. How similar are they actually, or how dissimilar are they?“The style of racing is similar, but the track itself, the way that the runs happen, the way that you’ve got to block and the way that you’ve got to protect the lanes is completely different. They’re the same style. It’s like going to a road course, right? Road course racing is kind of the same style, but they’re very different racetracks. The way that you get to the end of Daytona and the way that you get to the end of Talladega is different. But the mindset of taking your runs and all those things are somewhat similar, but the track does race very different than Daytona.” You mentioned the Chevrolet bodies earlier. I was just curious, has there been a noticeable difference in how they can take pushes or handle pushes in the draft?“You know, this is something that I didn’t have a problem with the old one. I think it was a lot more setup related than body related. It was a big fear of mine coming into the Chevy camp last year of, man, I’ve been so used to being able to push whoever I want, whenever I want, and take a push. I was scared that first Daytona of like, oh, what’s going to happen? But I didn’t have any issues with the old body or with the new body. I feel like that was a not a real thing. It was a thing that maybe everyone got in their heads, but it wasn’t a real thing. You know, the cars have to drive well; they have to take a push and there’s a lot of setup things that allow you to do that. I think it was more of that related than it actually was the body or manufacturer related.” |
NASCAR CUP SERIESTALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAYTEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTESAPRIL 25, 2026 |
Michael McDowell, driver of the No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series race weekend at Talladega Superspeedway. | MEDIA RESOURCES: Photo Gallery | Race AdvancesChevrolet Newsroom |
Media Availability Quotes: Talk a little bit about your team, where you guys are at this point in the season and what you’re looking forward to for Sunday’s race…“Yeah, we were really hoping to qualify. Talladega is just one of those racetracks where if it was going to rain out, this is an okay one to rain out, just because at first stage, you’re going to be saving fuel and you’ll have an opportunity to work your way towards the front or towards the middle. I don’t know the stats, but I think we got the last five out of six poles here, so we were kind of looking forward to trying to go out there and see what kind of speed we have, but we can’t control the weather. Just looking forward to Sunday. We’ve had a tough few weeks, so looking to try to get some momentum back on our side and get some points back up on the scoreboard because we definitely struggled the last few weeks. It’s a good weekend to get things turned around.” What do you think the state of the 71 team is right now? You say you haven’t had necessarily the speed you’re looking for… where do you think you guys are missing it? Do you have any idea?“Yeah, I think it’s just more execution and some setup things. Our teammates have had speed, so I don’t think it’s in our processes or our potential of the race car. We just haven’t maximized it. I think for us, probably more than anything, we sort of had a pretty good rhythm from last year. With the updated Chevy Camaro body, I feel like we just haven’t hit it quite as good, especially with the mile-and-a-halves. The good news is we have good data points. Every weekend, one of us has been quick, so I feel like we have the speed in our cars. We just haven’t hit it as a 71 group. We also have compounded our problems the last few weeks with pit road penalties and things like that, you know, when you take a not a great day and you make it a bad day. We just have to clean all those things up.” How much do you look at points after each race at this time of the season?“Well, they always matter. I think that where you’re at now is going to be that window of where you’re going to be, so you have to keep scoring points. I feel like even two or three races ago, I would have told you that we’re going to be right on that cutline, and it’ll probably be three of us racing for that cutline or close to it. We sort of knew that going into it. The points haven’t really shaken up much from what we thought they would be. We’re going to be close, and we can’t have weekends like we had last weekend.” NASCAR just announced that they made the news official that Jim France is stepping down as CEO. Your reaction to that news and when you heard it yesterday?“We had a little pre-meeting before they made the announcement with all the drivers. I think that it’s great for him. Obviously, he’s been dedicated to the sport for a long time, so for him to be able to not necessarily step away, but just step aside to allow Steve O’Donnell and Ben Kennedy to start to fill those roles and bring in the new management, I feel like it was what was going to happen at some point, right? You don’t do it forever. Honestly, I don’t think it changes a whole lot because we were sort of already there a little bit. I feel like it’s just kind of new titles. But I feel comfortable with where the sport’s at and where we’re going.” Were you a little surprised when you heard it, or like you said, you kind of saw this coming and that kind of thing?“Well, you guys have seen the last three or four years, Jim has been very active at NASCAR races, where three or four years prior to that, we probably didn’t see him quite as much. So I didn’t think that pace would stay up forever. He’s been not just NASCAR, but IMSA, motorcycle racing and everything for a long time, so it’s hard to keep that pace up, being at the racetrack every single week into your 70s and 80s has got to be tough.” How does NASCAR’s changes to the stage lengths for this weekend affect your team’s ability to try and execute the kind of strategy that you guys nearly pulled off at the end of the Daytona 500?“Yeah, there’s still a lot of strategy in play. I mean, we don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like. You know, you come up with theories and ideas, but a lot of it is based off of your competitors, too. Obviously, they’re not telling us what they’re going to do, so you kind of have plan A, plan B and plan C, depending on what everybody else does. But it’s definitely changed the flow of this race. You just kind of flip-flopped it to where that first stage is going to be where you do a lot of your fuel mileage saving and you kind of work your strategy. But there will still be opportunities for strategy in that second and third stage, as well. But yeah, I think everybody’s excited because there are some opportunities to do things, and we’ll see who takes those opportunities.” Even if they hadn’t changed the length of the final stage, would you guys still be able to try and execute the kind of fuel strategy you did at the end of the DAYTONA 500, just because you put it out there, everyone saw it, and now everyone knows that, oh, we might be able to try and stretch it to the end on fuel the way you guys looked like you could before that last caution came out?“I don’t know if anybody else could do it. I think we just executed it really well. We had the perfect scenario where we had a car behind us. We had Connor Zilisch behind us that was three or four laps down. And he didn’t know it, but he was pushing us along while we were saving fuel. It was just a perfect scenario. We were in the right spot at the right time, and once we realized we were getting the numbers that we were getting, it kind of opened that opportunity. But yeah, there won’t be an opportunity like that at the end of this race. But like I said, there are still some opportunities in the beginning.” Drivers have talked quite a bit that they like that this change has happened with the length of the stages. What’s your take on that, and how will fans see a slight difference for a better show this weekend?“Yeah, I’m optimistic, just like everybody else, that it’ll be a positive change. There’ll still be people that complain. That’s part of what we do, and I feel like that’s inevitable. There’s a lot of voices out there. I think the drivers probably like it because you know once you get into those final stages that, for the most part, you’re going to be hammer down. But I think that, just like the rules packages with the lower downforce and all those things, we just have to be cautious of how optimistic we get because there’s going to be guys that still short-fill in that final stage to get track position, and they’re still going to save fuel. There’s going to be people that flip the stages so that they have track position and they’ll have to save fuel, so it’s not a no-brainer where it’s like, I’ll throw a strategy out. There’s still going to be a lot of strategy playing out. There’s still going to be a lot of fuel saving happening.’ Just wanted to get your take on Talladega Superspeedway, not just the pure adrenaline rush, but something about this racetrack that excites you and piques your interest?“Yeah, it is exciting. It’s a fun race. When you make it to that final lap and you’re in those first few rows, it’s intense. There’s no doubt about it. The start-finish line is so far down here, it’s just hard to get to the finish line, right? You take the white and there’s still an eternity left of racing. I find it really fun. I’ve been pretty close here; had some good runs, but never gotten the checkered flag. Every time I come here, I look at the opportunity that’s in front of me that this could be a weekend that we could go win. I enjoy it. You don’t think about the risk while you’re out there or even right now. When you get home on Sunday evening, you’re like, okay, whether it was good or bad, you’re like, I survived Talladega and you move on to the next week. I enjoy this racetrack. I like the intensity. It’s produced some of the best finishes that we’ve seen in our sport. It’s also produced some of the scariest crashes we’ve seen in our sport. I feel like it’s just an iconic, historic NASCAR racetrack that we come to. Not everybody loves it, but I definitely love being here and like the opportunity that we have in front of us.” Thinking back to the first time you came here, what were your thoughts when you were going at full speed into turn one? What was your first thoughts there?“I remember in particular, I thought this was the dumbest racing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. You have to remember that I came from sportscars and IndyCar racing, and we barely are two-wide in those, for the most part. You just out-brake somebody, make the pass, it’s over. When I was three or four wide stuck in the middle of the pack, I was just like, this is like a suicide mission… what are we doing out here? It took me a while to embrace this style of racing because it’s so unique. When you come from other forms of motorsports and you come to Talladega or Daytona, it’s just so different than anything you’ve ever done. It took me a while to really learn to enjoy it because when you’re wedged up in the middle there, you just feel hopeless. You feel like, oh, there’s nothing I can do. If somebody makes a mistake in front of me, I’m just going to be in it. You’re thinking about all the wrong things. Now moving forward, I don’t ever feel that way. I’m like, oh, there’s an opportunity… I’m going to snake my way through here. I’m going to make a hole here. The first time coming here, I remember thinking, man, this is really, really dumb… what are we doing? But I’ve grown to love it and enjoy it, for sure.” Both of your teammates are in a position in their careers where a win would be very, very big for them. So if you’re in that situation where you’re ahead of one or both of them coming to the line, are you viewing them as more of a wingman or someone you’re going to have to really try hard to defend?“I think we had this scenario at Daytona (laughs). Yeah, I think that it’s a tough question to ask because every scenario is different. But the plan is for the Spire cars to work together to the best of our ability. But then there’s things at the end that happen that, I wouldn’t even say that it’s a matter of trying to win the race for your individual self or team, it’s more of trying to protect the win. So yeah, I don’t think about that. I also feel like I have something to prove, and it’s an opportunity for me, too. But I’m definitely going to help my teammates in any way that I can. And when it comes to the end of the races, everyone talks about it like, well, you plan for all these scenarios and they don’t always work out. Well, the scenario we planned for at Daytona worked out; we were in that position, but we didn’t execute. So I feel like that’s a learning experience for all of us, and we’ve got to make sure that we get to the finish line and not crash coming to the white.” Everyone always lumps Daytona and Talladega together. How similar are they actually, or how dissimilar are they?“The style of racing is similar, but the track itself, the way that the runs happen, the way that you’ve got to block and the way that you’ve got to protect the lanes is completely different. They’re the same style. It’s like going to a road course, right? Road course racing is kind of the same style, but they’re very different racetracks. The way that you get to the end of Daytona and the way that you get to the end of Talladega is different. But the mindset of taking your runs and all those things are somewhat similar, but the track does race very different than Daytona.” You mentioned the Chevrolet bodies earlier. I was just curious, has there been a noticeable difference in how they can take pushes or handle pushes in the draft?“You know, this is something that I didn’t have a problem with the old one. I think it was a lot more setup related than body related. It was a big fear of mine coming into the Chevy camp last year of, man, I’ve been so used to being able to push whoever I want, whenever I want, and take a push. I was scared that first Daytona of like, oh, what’s going to happen? But I didn’t have any issues with the old body or with the new body. I feel like that was a not a real thing. It was a thing that maybe everyone got in their heads, but it wasn’t a real thing. You know, the cars have to drive well; they have to take a push and there’s a lot of setup things that allow you to do that. I think it was more of that related than it actually was the body or manufacturer related.” |