| NASCAR CUP SERIES DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY DAYTONA 500 MEDIA DAY TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES FEBRUARY 11, 2026 |
Michael McDowell, driver of the No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet – 2026 DAYTONA 500 Media Day Quotes: | MEDIA RESOURCES: Photo Gallery | Race AdvancesChevrolet Newsroom |
| NASCAR CUP SERIESDAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAYDAYTONA 500 MEDIA DAYTEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTESFEBRUARY 11, 2026 |
Michael McDowell, driver of the No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet – 2026 DAYTONA 500 Media Day Quotes: | MEDIA RESOURCES: Photo Gallery | Race AdvancesChevrolet Newsroom |
| What is your outlook for 2026? “I think everybody’s outlook is positive. We all worked hard in the off-season. Everybody did a good job of refining the processes and procedures, hopefully making our race cars faster, right? Now we get to see. Now we get to the racetrack and we get to see that hard work pay off and let the results prove where we’re at and where we’re not at. But as you know, coming to Daytona, it’s a fresh start, a clean slate. There’s endless opportunities in front of us. There’s the unknown of what could happen and what the potential is. It’s fun and exciting. Now it’s time to go to work.” Maybe not the exact season you wanted in your first year. You showed signs of greatness. What did you learn most of all in 2025 that you can apply? “That the speed’s there. We’re close on the speed. We need to work on execution and getting everything just right. Probably the biggest area that we have to work on on the 71 group is from Saturdays to Sundays. Qualifying well, having good speed, then maybe missing it a little bit on Sunday on balance. We’d eventually find it and have an okay day, but we’ve had those dips in the race that would really set us back. Just working through some of the details on how to be better overnight and how to build on the racetracks we had success last year, how to revisit the ones that were a struggle, come up with a new approach. But yeah, I feel good about it. I mean, I feel like we had good speed, and we had not consistently race-winning speed, but at times we had race-winning speed. If we can bring that to the racetrack more consistently, then we’ll get it, we’ll eventually get it.” How important are the poles to you, to have that speed the day before? “Yeah, superspeedway poles are different, for sure. I think having the speed helps for the race. It’s not a tradeoff. At some places it might be a little bit of a tradeoff. I don’t feel like you’re giving anything up to have that speed tonight for Sunday. So it’s important for the team. It’s important for all of us to bring the fastest cars we can to give ourselves the best shot at winning. I think the 71 group has prided themselves in details, being that contender, knowing what it takes to do that. It took us a little while last year before we got our first superspeedway pole. But that gives us confidence coming into tonight that we have a shot at it. Who knows. We got a brand-new Chevy body, new season. Everybody makes gains, everybody finds more. It’s whether or not you found more than the others. So we’ll find out tonight.” You’re one of a handful of drivers that’s doing more than the race this weekend. When you do that, is there any tradeoff as far as tension or preparation being taken away from the Cup race? “I only did a handful last year. In the beginning of my career, I did a lot of Xfinity and Cup, O’Reilly, then it was Nationwide. I don’t know what it was before that. But then it was different because the cars were very similar from Saturday to Sunday. There was a benefit to it. For the most part, you’re running the same tire on Saturday to Sunday. The cars were fairly similar. Now it’s not. Now it’s such a big jump that they’re very different. You still get into a rhythm visually, pit road references, just overall you get into your own driver rhythm. I feel like there’s for sure a tradeoff. I don’t feel like it’s a one-to-one where the time and the commitment and what you’re doing doesn’t take away. It’s whether or not you get enough added to it to balance it out, right? I think a lot of times, especially with road courses, it balances out because you find the rhythm and visual references. Even though your brake markers might be different and your shift points might be different, it helps you as a driver to get into rhythm. For me, doing the Truck race is always about trying to win a Truck race and win in all three series. The Truck Series is the box that hasn’t been checked. I don’t have a ton of opportunities to do it, so I have to make the ones count. I take that Truck race Friday night very seriously. I’ve been preparing for it. I put the same amount of preparation into that as I would the Cup race. I have the capacity right now, too, because you’re not going week to week. I’ve had four weeks to prepare for one race. I feel like this is the time to do it. I have the time to do it right now.” On having Daniel Suarez as a teammate: “I think he brings experience. He brings a level of intensity. Also, too, he brings knowledge. He brings knowledge coming from good, successful teams, having good teammates over the years from Gibbs, SHR to Trackhouse. He’s been around good organizations and good groups. He’s done it a long time at a high level. Anyone that has that experience I feel will bring a lot to the table.” What have you learned about yourself in especially the last couple years? “Yeah, I feel like for me, it’s about knowing your value, knowing your purpose, and not allowing too many influences of that, right? I always say it like this: you can’t allow your value to be determined by other people’s perception of who you are or what you’re doing. Like being a NASCAR driver is awesome, but it’s what you do, it’s what I do, it’s not who I am, right? So being able to not separate that but live in both. I can do my job to the best of my ability. I give it everything that I have. Sometimes the results on Sundays are good, sometimes they’re not. I don’t allow that to determine my value as who I am as a father, as a husband, as a friend, as a teammate. I take what I do seriously, but I try not to take myself too seriously. You know what I mean? I always remind myself and I remind others that you’re not that big of a deal. I mean that in a humble way. When you win, you’re not that big of a deal. When you lose, you’re not that big of a deal. As soon as you start thinking that you’re a big deal is when life gets heavy and you start feeling that weight and that pressure and you put more on yourself than we’re really designed to handle. I try to, like I said, do my job well. I try to treat people well in the process. I don’t let the results determine who I am and what my values are.” |