Season best result still bittersweet for Watkins Glen runner-up McDowell

A season-best result Sunday at Watkins Glen was bittersweet for Michael McDowell.

McDowell drove his Spire Motorsports Chevrolet to a runner-up effort behind Shane van Gisbergen. He was perhaps the driver who kept the closest to the road course master all afternoon, though he was still multiple seconds behind. And while the result was much-needed, McDowell wanted one more spot.

“It’s great. It’s great to get this Go Bowling Chevrolet in the top five,” he said. “There were moments where I thought, ‘Oh, maybe we can hang with SVG,’ and it felt like he was just pacing himself off me. He’d take back off.”

McDowell was one of three drivers who led laps in addition to van Gisbergen. The pair started and finished where they qualified.

It was a weekend that McDowell and his No. 71 group knew they could take advantage of and did. McDowell had been backsliding in performance over the last few months, and Sunday was their first top-10 finish since early March.

“That second stage there, we got a little bit off strategy, and then we recovered well, which Travis [Peterson] did a great job of getting the track position when we needed it,” McDowell said. “Just not quite enough to run him down. Like I said, it’s just tough. Second is awesome; it’s great to get momentum back on our side. We needed it after a rough few weeks, but we wanted to get to victory lane.

“But proud of Spire, proud of my guys. They worked really hard. Great day. We’ll build on it and hopefully get ready for Charlotte 600. And I’d like to have made that All-Star race, too. That would have been another plus to [winning].”