After another top-10 performance, Michael McDowell and the No. 34 Ford Mustang Dark Horse head to “The Last Great Colosseum” at the Bristol Motor Speedway.

At Bristol, the Glendale native looks to continue his short-track momentum after a successful 2023, earning a ninth-place finish in the spring on the dirt configuration and a career-best sixth last September at the high-banked, half-mile oval.

McDowell and the No. 34 team will have Love’s Travel Stops and their truck care partner, Chevron Delo, racing with them this weekend. Chevron Delo is the maker of top performing heavy duty engine oils, coolants, antifreezes, transmission fluids, gear oils, greases and hydraulic oils.

Track activity will begin with practice and qualifying at 2 p.m. Saturday, March 16. The 500-lap event will take place at 12:30 p.m. Sunday, March 17 and will be televised live on FOX. Fans can also listen in on the action live from Sirius XM and the Performance Racing Network.

“We’re excited about where our team is heading, and our entire Front Row Motorsports program has improved each race with our Ford Mustang Dark Horse,” McDowell shared in a press release. “We are close to breaking through and taking that next step up in performance. We ran well at Bristol last year and expect to do the same this weekend.”

McDowell won the Daytona 500 in 2021. NASCAR itself named him one of the 10 biggest surprise winners in Daytona history.

“McDowell had yet to win a Cup race in 357 starts prior to the 2021 Daytona 500,” wrote NASCAR’s Zack Albert, who compiled the list. “That all changed on Feb. 14, when the driver of the Front Row Motorsports No. 34 Ford avoided a last-lap wreck and grabbed the checkered flag — leading only the final lap to nab the victory.”

His earliest racing came in north Glendale as a kid.

“Friday and Saturday nights during the summer, practicing and racing at PKRA (Phoenix Kart Racing Association),” he told the Independent of the track located at 22500 43rd Ave. E, when asked about his favorite memories growing up in Glendale. “It was a fun time in life, racing with my family and our friends. It was a great community out there and it was a special time.”

McDowell calls ISM Raceway, at 7602 Jimmie Johnson Drive in Avondale, his home track.