That is how Michael McDowell and the #2 Z-Line Designs/Southern New Hampshire University / Eddie Sharp Racing Dodge plan to look at the SK Hand Tools 200 ARCA RE/MAX Series event this past weekend at Chicagoland Speedway (IL).
The team went into Chicago with high hopes. They tested a few weeks ago and were very pleased with the results. A problem in qualifying resulted in the team having to change tires before the green flag, forcing McDowell to start from the back of the field. Once the race started, a first lap incident occurred in front of McDowell. With no place to go, McDowell began working his way around the carnage but unfortunately was tagged from behind causing the likeable North Carolina resident to get involved in the wreck and end his day almost as quick as it began.
 "Because we spun in qualifying, we flat-spotted the tires," said McDowell. "So we had to come down pit road before the green flag to change the tires, and that put us to the tail end of the pack. When we got back out, we were able to pass a lot of cars and were starting to work our way up when cars started to pile up in front of us. I checked up for the accident and someone behind us didn't see it, and they just drove all over us. We were kind of an innocent bystander, but the race was over for us after that."
Putting Chicagoland behind them, the Denver, NC - based team will next compete in the Eddie Gilstrap Fall Classic by Advance Auto Parts at Salem Speedway this Saturday. |
At this point, McDowell's ARCA experience has been on mile and mile-and-a-half tracks. This weekend's 200-lap event at Salem Speedway Salem will be his first start at a short track.
"I am looking forward to going to Salem and turning our week around," added McDowell. "We had such a good car at Chicago and really wanted to show what we had; it just didn't work out well for us.
"Now there is a lot of pressure on me to do a good job at Salem. And Salem is going to be such a new experience for me, because I have never been on a short track before and it is a whole different style of racing. I have two ARCA races under my belt but unfortunately I haven't finished either one, and that is not what I want to do - finish."
Despite his lack of experience racing on short tracks, McDowell is excited about this upcoming weekend and what the team can do together.
"We went up and tested Salem last week before we headed to Chicago, and that went really well. We did about 130 laps in order for me to get a handle on the place.
"It's pretty high banked, and it's awesome, just a lot of fun. The car was good last week, and I expect that it will be good again, and hopefully we can show what we are capable of."
The Eddie Gilstrap Motors ARCA Fall Classic at Salem Speedway will get underway Saturday, September 16th, at 7:15pm. |
The 21-year-old already had an impressive racing resume to his name, but after racing inside the top-five in his first-ever ARCA race at Milwaukee, McDowell appears to be well on his way of becoming one of the next young stars to be developed in the series by car owner Eddie Sharp.
Even though the finishing result McDowell left Milwaukee with wasn't quite what he was hoping for, the young driver learned plenty about ARCA racing and proved that he could get the job done in the series. He will look to finish what he started at Milwaukee this weekend at Chicagoland
Speedway (IL) in the SK Hand Tools 200. The 1.5-mile tri-oval will pose a tough task for McDowell and the number-2 Z-Line Designs/Southern New Hampshire University Dodge team for Eddie Sharp Racing, but as was proven at Milwaukee, the young driver is up to the challenge.
"I'm excited about this race at Chicagoland," said McDowell. "Milwaukee gave me a lot of confidence just to know that I could race up front. Even though the result didn't show it, we proved that we could run well. I feel good about that. This is the first weekend that I'm going to be in one of the Ganassi-built cars in our shop. It was really good in the test last week, so we know the car is good and we know the motor is good, so we just have to go out there and try to get our first top-five."
Last week's test at Chicagoland gave McDowell a chance to run valuable laps before hitting the track this weekend in race competition. McDowell logged as many laps as possible before rain put an abrupt end to the session, but his laps, in addition to the advice from NASCAR veteran Johnny Benson, who was at the Chicago test with McDowell, gave the driver confidence as he enters the SK Hand Tools 200.
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"I had Johnny Benson out there working with me and that was a big help. He really showed me the way around there. He gave me a couple pointers that will really help for the race. I feel like I have a pretty good hold on the track and what I need to do. I only had about 20 laps on the track because the rest of the test was rained out, but even though I didn't get a whole lot of track time, having Johnny there really helped me out.
"The speed there is really unbelievable, but the biggest thing for me was just getting used to carrying that amount of speed into the corners and adjusting to how well the car handles the speed. I definitely had to build up my confidence, but I think I did that and it was a lot of fun."
McDowell knows that Eddie Sharp Racing can bring his number-2 machine into Chicagoland Speedway's victory lane, and with the tremendous amount of experience gained at Milwaukee and in the Chicagoland test, he is looking forward to the kind of finish that he deserved the first time out.
"The first thing we have to do is finish. We had a good run going at Milwaukee, but we got caught up in someone else's mess. Hopefully we'll be able to avoid that this weekend and just be able to do a good job, run consistent and be there at the end so that we can race for a good finish.
The SK Hand Tools 200 at Chicagoland Speedway is scheduled to take the green flag at 2pm ET on September 9th live on SPEED. |
