Start your engines, NASCAR is coming to Coronado. More specifically, to Naval Air Station North Island.
And planning to drive in this race is the 2021 Daytona 500 champion, Michael McDowell.
McDowell, 40, has been racing in NASCAR for almost two decades now, but has been driving fast things since he was about 2 feet tall.
He started his career when he was 3 years old, racing BMX bicycles before moving to go karts when he was 8. He would race go karts for the next 10 years, winning the World Karting Association and International Kart Federation.
McDowell’s whole life has been about moving at speeds faster than a normal human would go and he’s not stopping anytime soon.
The race at Coronado is planned for mid-June next year and McDowell, from Charlotte, North Carolina, will be prepping for months beforehand. He’ll be on the island practicing the racetrack for at least four weeks before the race, but he’ll be learning the track in a simulator way before he drives the real thing in person.
According to The Coronado News’ communications with NASCAR, details of the race are still being finalized, but McDowell confirmed that the racetrack will be different from other NASCAR tracks.
It’s actually going to be closer to a street course feel where you might be going from asphalt to concrete, or from an access road to a taxiway.
Michael McDowell
“It’s actually going to be closer to a street course feel where you might be going from asphalt to concrete, or from an access road to a taxiway,” McDowell explained to The Coronado News.
And the simulator that McDowell will be practicing on is designed to capture every crack and bump in the road so that it feels like the exact course.
“Your mental visualization or memorization will take place on the computer on the simulator. But it’s very realistic,” McDowell said.
His other training stays the same. He’ll work out three to four times a week and do heat training in addition to hand-eye coordination exercises and G-force training.
“It’ll be 140 degrees inside the car,” McDowell said. To train for that, one of his exercises is that he’ll sit in the sauna for a few hours.
“The mental focus standpoint is the hardest. It’s not so much the physical,” McDowell explained. “Anytime you’re dehydrated or you don’t have enough fuel in the tank – nutrition – the first thing that goes is your mind.”
McDowell described NASCAR races as endurance events that last 2 ½ hours to 3 ½ hours.
“The mind stops before the body does, typically, or the mind’s telling you, ‘Okay, we’re done,’” he said.
