BRISTOL, Tenn. - Michael McDowell's custom racing shoes with an embroidered lion reveal a bit more about his personality beyond being a husband, father, and former Daytona 500 champion.
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He loves to talk trash during the fantasy football season, something that the No. 71 Spire Motorsports team learned all too well last season as he went undefeated and claimed the championship.
Photo credit: FanBuzz
"He just started making these, like, AI pictures (of lions) that he would send us of his score every single week," interior specialist Tyler Philpott told FanBuzz at Bristol Motor Speedway. He then showed a photo of McDowell impersonating a roaring lion.
"And then he was sending us this on vacation. It just became a staple of him just trampling us every single week."
This fantasy football league is one that has featured various members of the team in recent seasons. This includes Philpott, McDowell, tire technician Collin Markle, spotter Michael Fisher, front changer Max Marsh, fueler Brandon Chapman, and crew chief Travis Peterson.
The lineup has changed over the years, but the seemingly unhinged group chat and trash talk have continued.
The volley of lion memes started around the midpoint of the fantasy football season. McDowell, whose team featured Offensive Player of the Year Jaxon Smith-Njigba, sent the first photo to the group chat. It featured a roaring lion with his current record.
Once McDowell won another game, he sent another lion photo. This trend then continued as he reached 11-0, 12-0, 13-0, and 14-0.
"It was just unbelievable because it was like every single week, every single week, it didn't matter," Philpott said while pointing at McDowell. "You would score the least amount of points you'd ever scored, and then he would just completely trample us. It was so aggravating!"
Peterson saw the situation differently. He didn't believe McDowell enjoyed as dominant a season as described.
"It was not a complete trampling," Peterson said. "I think he only beat me by like half a (expletive) point one time."
Ultimately, the margin of victory didn't matter. McDowell won the championship, and then he sent a photo of a lion wearing a Santa hat. This lion had a gold-and-diamond-encrusted "champion" pendant around its neck.
"Well, how it started was I was on the carnivore diet," McDowell said. "I was telling them we're the top of the food chain, apex predators.
"Nothing's higher than us. You know, we're the lions, and then that's kind of what just started. 'The lion doesn't concern himself.'"
But the AI photos did not solely feature the lion and the record. McDowell made personalized creations for the different team members he defeated each week. Some were far more appropriate than others.
One image showed fueler Brandon Chapman fighting a lion. Chapman had a fuel canister in one arm and a sword in his opposite hand.
Another image showed Dax Hollifield, former jackman for the No. 71 team, fighting a lion with a spear. Hollifield had his leg wrapped, representing an injury he sustained on pit road.
"I'm looking all bandaged up; it looks like there's a broken race car in that photo because he hit me," Hollifield told FanBuzz. "He put me on the hood before that. So yeah, that was pretty funny (laughs)."
The lion started as a way for McDowell to talk trash to his fellow league mates, but it became something so much more.
These crew members sent their own versions to the group chat; they just put McDowell and the lion in far less favorable situations. One may have even featured the lion at a political protest.
"Everybody was just kinda, especially with AI, making all kinds of images," McDowell said (laughs). "Slaying the lion, and taking the lion down."
The lion became the focus of the group chat during McDowell's championship campaign. He had fun creating random AI images and using them for his trash talk.
Yet his fantasy football competitors are actually the ones who inspired him to get the lion on his racing shoes.
"I think we had talked about it at one point, and I was like, 'Oh, you should put the lion on the shoe,'" Philpott said. "And then it made it even more funny because nobody got the joke.
"And I think that's what makes it funnier because he's wearing them on TV, and we've had in-car cameras and stuff."
McDowell agreed with the recommendation. He saw the opportunity that he could not pass up.
"At the end of the year, Travis and I always come up with something to do for the guys," he said. "And so we ended up getting everybody shoes. Whatever they wanted — Jordans, something crazy.
"This is what I picked out. I picked out the lion shoes because I dominated those guys. I didn't want them to forget."
Nine months after McDowell clinched the championship, the league is back in action. Some members have changed due to Hendrick Motorsports altering the pit crew.
Hollifield is now on the No. 48 team while pitting for Alex Bowman. He is no longer in the league, but he remembers his time fondly.
Sure, it's not fun for a former football player to lose a fantasy league to a race car driver. But Hollifield loved how the trash talk actually showed the connection between the team members.
"You get to know everybody better on a personal level," Hollifield said. "We were a really close team last year, but it takes that. It takes people stepping out of their, I don't know, just out of their comfort zone.
"Or just, like, I don't know, coming down a level. You know, people can think they're too big for other people. Michael, Travis, nobody on that team (does that). We're all the same."
With this new league year comes the opportunity for another player to go on a dominant run. It just won't be McDowell who goes undefeated again.
He lost in week 1 after the league expanded to 12 teams and his cousin joined as another manager. He then won in Week 2 as Smith-Njigba put up 155 yards and three touchdowns against the Cardinals.
As it turns out, the other managers in the league still tease McDowell about "cheating" by potentially using his cousin as a behind-the-scenes manager.
"Well, that's why we invited his cousin to play, and now Michael sucks," Peterson said with a laugh.
