Front Row Motorsports shines at Sonoma with Top-10 finishes
After the 110-lap Toyota/Save Mart 350 Sunday, Front Row Motorsports drivers Michael McDowell and Todd Gilliland found themselves among the Top-10 finishers at Sonoma Raceway.
McDowell finished second-place while Gilliland got a 10th-place finish.
McDowell passed Martin Truex Jr. for the runner-up spot on the final lap, but wasn’t able to catch race winner Kyle Larson.
“I needed him to battle with the 19 a little bit more and the 17 because when he came out on new tires, he was just quicker than us,” McDowell said.
“I couldn’t hold him off, but I knew in the long run we could probably balance out and have a little bit of speed. Our long run was our strength, so I don’t know.
For McDowell, it was his first Top-5 finish of the season and fifth overall Top-10. Yet, he is 93 points behind the playoff cutline with 10 races before the playoffs.
“It’s great to be disappointed with second, but that’s just the way this playoff format is,” McDowell said. “A win is so important and we came up a little bit short.”
Gilliland was the only driver to earn stage points in both opening stages.
Gilliland, who started 14th, passed Truex and Kyle Busch, who both appeared to be out of gas, on the last lap of the race to pick up his second Top-10 of the season.
Like his teammate, Gilliland is on the outside looking in for the playoffs with a 99-point deficit to the cutline.
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Dominic Aragon View All
Dominic Aragon is currently the editor-in-chief for The Racing Experts.
From Grants, New Mexico, USA, Aragon started watching NASCAR in 2004 and has been covering the sport since 2009. Aragon is a 2012 graduate of Grants High School and a May 2016 graduate of the University of New Mexico with a B.A. in Mass Communications & Journalism. Aragon has worked in local and national media, as a musician, and an educator. He is co-author of the 2024 book "All of It: Daytona 500 Champion Tells the Rest of the Story" with racer Geoff Bodine.
Aragon, his wife Feliz, and son Christopher currently reside in Grants, New Mexico, USA.
You can reach Dominic at daragon@theracingexperts.net.