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August 10, 2008
Not too Happy With Michael McDowell After Watkins Glen
With help from David Gilliland, Michael McDowell caused a huge wreck at Watkins Glen and I'm not too happy about it. While racing for position McDowell got into Gilliland and set off a massive wreck that results in nine wrecked race cars - including that of his owner Michael Waltrip, and sent Bobby Labonte to the hospital for evaluation after he got out of his car in obvious pain. The race had to be red flagged for 40 minutes for clean-up and I have to say it was one of the scariest wrecks that I've seen on a non-restrictor plate track in a long time. I'm very thankful that they race the COTs because if not there might be more than just Bobby making a visit to the hospital right now.
I'm all for hard racing particularly towards the end of the race and I know that sometimes when drivers are being aggressive and racing hard it could result in a wreck. When Jeff Burton criticized McD for racing him hard earlier in the season I defended McD's right to race him aggressively. But what troubles me is that it's possible that McD was retaliating against Gilliland for the way he was racing him. That's not acceptable to me to retaliate against another driver and particularly in a way that results in a massive wreck. But regardless of whether McD was just racing hard and made a mistake or deliberately got into Gilliland he has to use better judgment and be aware of the big picture which is that he's racing to get back into the top 35 in owner's points.
The other thing is that McD may not have a ride for next season since MWR may not continue to field the #00 if they can't find a sponsor for it. That means he's racing to impress sponsors and teams. After today he may very well have raced himself out of a ride for next season, particularly when one considers that he's a very experienced road course racer and the expectations for him at this track are likely for him to finish a lot better than 25th.
I'm now understanding why at Sonoma Michael (Waltrip) made a point of telling his spotter, Ty Norris, to tell McD's spotter to make sure McD didn't run him over. I'm also starting to understand why there's been some rumors that McD has fallen out of favor at MWR. Teams want young drivers who will race hard and be aggressive on the track but they also want them to make good decisions - I'm not sure McD did that today. I didn't hear it myself but I saw somewhere that supposedly Michael called McD "McDiddle" over his radio. If so, that certainly says a lot about what Michael thought of that incident - and maybe of McD. That wouldn't be very good for McD considering Michael owns his car.
McD isn't very far out of the top 35 so a few good finishes and he could race his way back in. I have my doubts about whether that's going to happen though given that the results haven't been very good for him this season. And if he can't get the car back into the top 35, I have to wonder if MWR is going to continue to field the #00 or whether they might pull the car before the end of the season so they can concentrate on the #44 and #55, since there's a question of whether they're going to field the #00 next season.
I was leery of the plan to put McD in the #00 with almost no Nascar experience but based on how well he did in ARCA I knew he had talent behind the wheel. I figured that he'd at least race well enough to keep the car in the top 35 particularly given his road course expertise. It's kind of disappointing the way things have gone with him. I really didn't expect him to race up front, particularly given that MWR is still struggling to field competitive cars overall, but I expected more than McD has shown so far.
Posted by silverdsl at August 10, 2008 06:59 PM