Michael McDowell No. 46 Cash America Chevrolet Impala Preview: Texas
Harrisburg, N.C. (November 3, 2010) — Michael McDowell makes the trip to Texas Motor Speedway looking forward to the chance to race to the finish in this weekend's Samsung 500. For McDowell the trip to Texas - site of one of the most spectacular accidents in recent NASCAR history when he hit the wall and flipped side-over-side in qualifying in March 2008 - is all about this weekend and racing, and the only time he will think about that spectacular highlight reel footage is when someone else brings it up.
Everyone knows this was the site of one of the biggest crashes in recent memory when you wrecked in qualifying here in 2008; how do you put that behind you and not let it affect you when you come back? "Crash? What crash? I've never had a big crash or any kind of crash at Texas! I still look at the accident and can't believe it was me in that car. I remember it happening but it's hard to imagine that it was actually me. As a racecar driver, you try to always be looking forward and not back, so it's actually fairly easy to come back to the track and stay focused on what we're here to do. But at the same time, everyone you talk to here wants to talk about that crash and if it gives us and our sponsors some additional exposure well then I am happy to talk about it. I can't go anywhere at the track without someone asking me about it. I've had fans come up to me and ask "aren't you that guy I saw flip here about fifteen times a few years ago?'
How close to wide open do the Cup cars run at Texas? Any hesitancy to drive it in that hard? "When I come to Texas I feel invincible. I really feel like I have something to prove here so I actually drive a lot harder here than I might at some other places. We carry a lot of speed off into the corners here. We're very close to bumping up against 200 miles per hour headed into the turns, which is just as fast as we were running in the draft last week running wide open at Talladega. Of course the turns aren't banked as much at Texas and they aren't as wide and sweeping as Talladega so we do have to get off the gas, but we aren't off it for very long – just long enough for the car to take a set and then we're back on it and headed down the next straightaway. No, there isn't any hesitancy to drive it in hard. In fact, you always want to drive it in even harder hoping you'll get that last hundredth or thousandth of a second."
The Indy Cars will run a same-day doubleheader at Texas next year, do you think a format like that would work for NASCAR with twin 200 or 250 mile races on the same day? "I think the Indy car races here next June are going to be a lot of fun to watch. They are going to be shorter so you won't have any time to wait, you're going to have to get up and go from the drop of the green flag. I don't know if that format would work in a Cup race. Not because the fans wouldn't like it, but I don't know if there would be enough cars to go around! Imagine if we did a doubleheader at a place like Talladega, it might look like a war zone at the end of the second race. If they wanted to give it a try, I'd be game. I think it would be fun to run all the races at Texas – Cup, Nationwide, Trucks and Indy cars. I better get working on that to make it happen."
About Cash America: Cash America International, Inc. provides specialty financial services to individuals in over 1,000 locations in the United States and Mexico and over the Internet in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. Cash America is the largest provider of secured non-recourse loans (commonly referred to as pawn loans) in the United States and currently operates under the brand names Cash America Pawn and SuperPawn in the United States and under the brand name Prenda Fácil in Mexico. The company also offers short-term cash advances in many of its locations in the United States, including close to 250 stores that offer this service under the brand names Cash America Payday Advance and Cashland. The company also offers check cashing services in many of its lending locations and in its company-owned and franchised check cashing facilities operating under the Mr. Payroll trade name. The company also offers short-term consumer loan products over the Internet in the United States at http://www.cashnetusa.com, in the United Kingdom at http://www.quickquid.co.uk, in Australia at http://www.dollarsdirect.com.au, and in Canada at http://www.dollarsdirect.ca. The company also owns a card services business that processes cash advances on behalf of a third-party lender with balances outstanding in all 50 states and four other United States jurisdictions. The company's corporate offices are located in Fort Worth, Texas.
Texas On-Track:
Friday November 5
- 1:00 — 2:30 PM ETNSCS Practice
- 4:40 PM ET NSCS Qualifying
Saturday November 6
- 9:45 — 10:30 AM ET NSCS Practice
- 11:00 — 12:00 PM ET NSCS Final Practice
Sunday November 7
- 3:00 PM ET NSCS AAA Texas 500 (334 laps/500 miles; Live, ESPN/PRN Radio/Sirius NASCAR Radio Channel 128)