Michael McDowell on perseverance, work-family balance and racing in his prime: 12 Questions

Each week, The Athletic asks the same 12 questions to a different race car driver. Up next: Michael McDowell, a Phoenix-area native who will race at his home track this weekend for the first time as a Spire Motorsports driver. McDowell is the only driver in the Cup Series to begin this season with three top-15 finishes and ranks seventh in the point standings. This interview has been edited and condensed, but the full version is available on the 12 Questions podcast.

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1. What was one of the first autographs you got as a kid and what do you remember about that moment?

It was Alan Kulwicki at the Hooters down the street from where I grew up. He was actually there signing autographs with a show car. It was probably within a few years of his passing (in a 1993 plane crash), maybe a year or two. I got a T-shirt signed by him and I still have it up in storage.

I remember getting Bryan Herta’s autograph at a go-kart track. He was racing IndyCar and he was always supporting karters because that’s what he came out of. And I remember meeting him a few times.

2. What is the most miserable you’ve ever been inside a race car?

At Kentucky in 2010, I forget what they call it, but it’s when you get so dehydrated that your insides turn or flip. I literally thought I was having something fail — really bad cramps, but then my body just (shut) down. That is the only time I ever got out of a race car for any reason.

Kentucky was a standalone Xfinity race, and I was flying back and forth. So I got out of Cup happy hour, jumped on the plane, flew to Kentucky. Just the whole weekend was just like that and I got behind on my hydration.

3. Outside of racing, what is your most recent memory of something you got way too competitive about?

Pickleball. I was playing my buddy Trevor Bayne and we probably played 100 games. … I’m like, “I’m going to beat him. I don’t care how long it takes.” We were playing doubles with our wives, too. So it was ultra-competitive. And I remember my wife being like, “You need to relax. Your friends aren’t going to have you over anymore if you keep acting like this.” (Laughs.)

4. What do people get wrong about you?

That (the competitiveness). Out of the race car, I am genuinely happy, but I’m very intense when it comes to my job and what we’re doing from a process and procedure standpoint.

And then in the race car, too. You put the helmet on and everything ramps up. You see it with some guys: Joey (Logano) is a super nice guy out of the race car, and then in the race car, he’s a complete maniac. I don’t hit the (radio) button and I won’t get out and lose it, but mentally, I get there.

5. What kind of Uber passenger are you and how much do you care about your Uber rating?

I’ve only Ubered twice. I don’t like other people driving and I’m usually fairly planned out. I normally will have a ride, or I am the ride, so I very rarely need an Uber. I also don’t drink, so that helps.

6. A wild-card question for you: You have five kids and you’ve had at least one little one for more than 15 years straight. Your job now requires more studying and preparation than ever, but your family is bigger than ever. How do you balance that time and divide it up?

First, I have an amazing wife (Jami) who takes on a lot of that burden, which allows me to do my job well. But I also try to make the most of my time regardless of what I’m doing.

If I’m home, then I’m taking the kids to school, I’m making them breakfast, I’m doing what I can with them. I’m engaged with them to make that time count. When I’m at the shop, I’m having the meetings I need to have, having the conversations I need to have. I’m not just hanging out. Time is the greatest commodity we have, and it’s very easy to waste it if you’re not intentional about it.

Being together on the road has helped a lot, even though I’m not hanging out with my kids today — I’m racing and I’m practicing, qualifying, studying. I was here an hour before the garage opened, before anyone is here, and I’ll be here an hour after the garage is closed. This is what I do. My wife knows that. My kids know that. And then when I go back to the motorhome, I’m done. I’ve done my work, I’ve done my studying. I’m trying not to bring it back. So then we’ll go throw the ball around or we’ll take the golf cart around and go watch the Xfinity race.

I used to find myself getting messed up, because you want to do the very best for your family, and so sometimes you’ll sacrifice your work for that. And I got to a place where the best thing I can do for my family is to do my job really, really well. Then my kids know what hard work, dedication and discipline looks like. … Once I really embraced that, I started doing both better.

7. This the 16th year I’ve been doing the 12 Questions. You were the first ever 12 Questions interview in 2010. At the time, I asked you: “How long do you see yourself driving?” You said, “Every year, I just hope to make it one more year.” You’re 40 now. You’ve made it a lot more years. How long do you see yourself driving now?

For so many years, it was just like, “Man, I hope I get to do this one more year.” And it’s just gotten better and better, and then obviously winning (at the Daytona 500 in 2021 and the Indianapolis road course in 2023). But I’m never comfortable.

I don’t know how long that road is. I feel like right now I’m at my prime, my peak. I’m running really well, so I want to keep doing it at a high level. As long as I feel like I’m performing at a high level and getting the most out of the race cars and I’m not holding the team back.

This is a performance-driven sport. You go out there and you flop around for the next nine months and you’re gonna be out of a job — and we all know that. But more than anything, I’m at a place now where I just want to do it well. And when I don’t, that will be the time to say, “There’s somebody younger and there’s somebody faster and there’s somebody more dedicated and better at it.”

8. Other than one of your teammates, name a driver who you’d be one of the first people to congratulate them in victory lane if they won a race.

(Former teammate) Todd Gilliland, hands down. I will have a soft spot in my heart forever, whether we’re teammates or not, just because of my history with his dad (David Gilliland) and their family. He’s a good kid, hard worker and has grinded it out.

9. How much do you use AI technology, whether for your job or your daily life?

I haven’t really embraced that yet. The one thing that excites me about it is what we talked about: Time. This will give us the ability to be way, way more efficient with our time, because we won’t spend as much digging in with research and spreadsheets and data and all that.

But I’m also worried for the young generation, like my son, that you aren’t going to have the common sense, problem-solving mindset because something is doing it for you. I don’t know if that’s good for us. From an efficiency standpoint, we’ll probably go way up, but I think we’ll be dumber because of it.

10. What is a time in your life that was really challenging, but you feel proud of the way you responded to it?

From a career standpoint, my proudest moments were when I was start-and-parking and grinding it out and making those races and still having that level of intensity to go do that and to do it well. (Note: There was a period in NASCAR when some low-budget teams would start the race, run some laps and then park their cars for the day just to collect the purse money without actually racing and risking expensive damage to the cars. McDowell spent five seasons doing that.)

Last year, Martinsville was my 500th Cup start, and I am prouder of that than I am of winning the Brickyard or the Daytona 500. Because I know how tough it was for 360 of those, to be like, “I’m gonna still show up every week knowing it’s not going to be good.”

You told me awhile ago that back in the start-and-park days, you would even set a goal for yourself to achieve before you had to pull off of the track.

That’s because you want to keep goals, but your goals have to be tangible as well. You want to set them high, but not so high that you’ll never reach them, because then you’re just discouraged.

I was always like, “I want to get to 28th before I pull off,” or, “I want to pass this car before I pull off.” Or sometimes it was like, “I want to be best on pit road or coming to a green-flag stop,” and I would practice those things.

The No. 1 target was to make the race. But after you make the race … it was just always having something to push you forward so you don’t get stagnant and stale.

11. What needs to happen in NASCAR to take this sport to the next level of popularity?

International, which we’re doing by going to Mexico City. But even more international events. Our racing is so, so good and so captivating. What we do on the racetrack is awesome, and we need to bring that to more people, more eyeballs.

Mexico City is a great start, but we should be going to Interlagos (in Brazil), we should be going to Spa (Belgium), we should be going to Monza (Italy).

12. Each week, I ask a driver to give me a question for the next person. The last one was with Connor Zilisch and he says: “If you could go back to the early 2000s when you were my age, racing open-wheel, what would be one different career decision you wish you had made at the time?”

This is one timeframe where I don’t have a lot of regrets, so it’s hard for me to answer that. I won the Road to Indy scholarship program, but there weren’t any real opportunities for me to go IndyCar racing full-time. And I’ve always been on the big side (physically). Even when I was starving myself and training like a maniac, I was still too tall and too big for IndyCars. So I’m glad I transitioned into stock cars.

But when I look back at my career as a whole, what I would have done differently at a very early age is I should have hired or found somebody to just go chase sponsorship and control a little bit more of my own destiny by having some key partners behind me to go to the next level. It would have allowed me to be in more competitive rides throughout that journey.

That’s what I tell karters and families now: Unless they have the means to do it, my top priority would be going and building that brand and trying to find partners to get behind it. Because family money will only take you so far. This sport is so expensive and you need partners. I thought talent alone would take care of it, and it doesn’t. So you’ve got to work hard on the business side of it.

Do you have a question I can ask the next person? It’s Noah Gragson.

Does the moon phase and gravitational pull affect how your car handles?

(Top photo of Michael McDowell during Daytona 500 qualifying last month: Meg Oliphant / Getty Images)