It was awesome seeing Front Row Motorsports win another Cup race this time where their main man Michael McDowell has been excellent all along up front on his favoured road course experience under the infield oval at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He finished 1st in stage 1 from 4th on the grid followed by 2nd in stage 2 & got one spot back to hold that off through to the finish line thanks to that Daniel Suarez final pit error.
So much progress has been made since McDowell & the team’s Daytona 500 breakthrough from 2021 as he’s now back for another extended crack in the upcoming Playoffs starting this September. He might not have won a regular season race or any race last year but he has been excellent in the Top 15 ever since including some more occasional Top 5-10s here & there.
Look out for Mike & the No.34 Ford Mustang to at least hopefully get through the first round. If he can hang in there, then we could see him go all the way through to the Round of 8 – especially when you got two medium to big track races + the last Roval race at Charlotte up for grabs. Exciting times ahead at FRM.
Meanwhile, we got two of our current Aussie Supercars drivers in action as well at the same time where the returning Shane Van Gisbergen (Trackhouse) – currently at Triple 8 – was joined by his fellow rival Brodie Koesteki from Erebus Motorsport (Richard Childress Racing).
Yes, we would’ve loved to see another fairytale win from SVG following his debut Cup heroics at the new Chicago street course early last month. Now it might not been possible earlier today when he struggled to push the No.91 into the Top 5 during the 1st half from 8th on the grid (9th in Stage 1 & 14th in Stage 2), but he took his time well however on the run home with a respectable 10th place finish.
SVG will be happy to take some positives out of his 2nd Cup race including the Trucks debut on a oval where he was in & out of the Top 20 the other day after a 19th placed finish at Indianapolis Raceway Park for Niece Motorsports.
Then we thought that Kostecki would start
start outside the Top 10 after he was 11th fastest beforehand in qualifying, but then he had to start from the back after he crashed out at the same time before RCR had to get a back up race car for him ahead of race day. He has made some lost time right away as soon as the race has started which is a not a bad start.
Although he couldn’t gain something further out of a different chassis than the one he was in yesterday as the result could’ve been better if if wasn’t for the crash, but he did stay closer to the Top 20 though for the rest of the afternoon in P22.
Both drivers will now be heading back here to resume their respective normal Supercars duties ahead of the next event over at The Bend Motorsport Park in South Australia this weekend. Now there isn’t room for both of them to return at all for one last Roval race of the year at Charlotte Motor Speedway as they both got the Bathurst 1000 to face on the same October 8 weekend, but who knows what will come next for them going into 2024?
For now, we got another road course race at Watkins Glen in New York in a week’s time before we round off the regular season for the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona at the last weekend of this month.
