Michael McDowell 'always' focused on winning amid NASCAR playoff push

At this stage of the NASCAR Cup Series regular season, Michael McDowell is fully focused on winning a race. Not that he wouldn't be anyway. 

The 2021 Daytona 500 champion sits 22nd in the Cup Series playoff picture after a brake failure relegated him to a 35th-place finish at Pocono Raceway on June 22. That took McDowell from only 43 points below the cut line entering Pocono to 71 points below the cut line as the circuit heads to EchoPark Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway) with only nine regular-season races remaining. 

Regardless of his points situation, McDowell says that he and the No. 71 team are always searching for Victory Lane. 

"You're always looking for a win," McDowell told Yardbarker at Pocono Raceway on June 21. "Relying on points where we're at is not a good strategy. You gotta try to win, we know that. But we still have an outside chance to points our way in. We're fast enough every week to put ourselves in contention to do that, but you're only one or two weeks away from somebody else below the cut line winning and not being in. You have to take that mindset of staying locked in and trying to win a race. We have good racetracks coming up to do that." 

The three road course races — Chicago, Sonoma and Watkins Glen — over the final nine weeks of the regular season are likely McDowell's best opportunity to win a race and sew up a playoff bid, but the drafting tracks of Atlanta and Daytona also give the No. 71 team a chance at a season-defining victory. 

All quotations obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.