McDowell Bombshell Could Start To Shape Silly Season

This morning Michael McDowell, driver of the #34 for Front Row Motorsports, announced that he will not be returning to the team for the 2025 season. This news has come as a shock to many as McDowell has been the leader of the team since he first joined in 2018 and has since won two races with them including a Daytona 500

The biggest question to come from this is where will McDowell go? The current rumour being spread is that he will be going to Spire Motorsports. The team currently has three chartered cars being piloted by Corey Lajoie (7), Zane Smith (71), and Carson Hocevar (77). The important note of this driver line-up is that Zane Smith was essentially a loan for Spire from Trackhouse Racing as they had signed Zane Smith, but weren't able to secure their own charter. This was done with the hope that they would be able to acquire a charter for the 2025 season. So most likely we can see McDowell driving the 71 for Spire next season.

Another question is if this happens, where does Trackhouse get another charter from? It's being heavily speculated that Stewart-Haas Racing will be downsizing to three cars due to the lack of competitiveness that the team has grown accustomed to. The likely car to get cut out is the 41, currently driven by Ryan Preece. The 41 car has been largely unsponsored, sporting a Haas Tooling paint scheme for most weeks and, from the outside looking in, Preece looks like the odd man out as he was brought in to replace Cole Custer while the others were brought up from SHR development like Chase Briscoe or handpicked from a different organization like Josh Berry and Noah Gragson. There was also said to have been a study group between three of the SHR drivers to figure out their performance issues and the one left out was Ryan Preece. 

The McDowell move helps to start painting the picture of what this silly season will be. Assuming all of this ends up being correct, Trackhouse will be taking the #41 charter to put Zane Smith in which leaves the 71 car open for Michael McDowell. With this Ryan Preece would need to look for a new ride which he surely will get at one of the top levels as he is a talented driver and the 34 for Front Row will be open for a new driver to pair alongside a young Todd Gilliland.

Update: Spire has made it official that McDowell will be taking over the #71 car making it almost certain that Zane Smith will not continue with the team.