Each time Dale McDowell has stepped foot on the swampy grounds of Volusia Speedway Park to effectively begin his Georgia-Florida Speedweeks these last few years, something life-altering has transpired either in the days or months to follow.

It’s been precisely two years now since the Chickamauga, Ga., veteran’s triumphant return from prostate cancer at the DIRTcar Sunshine Nationals, a heroic victory that brought renewal to McDowell’s competitive racing career which otherwise hung in the balance. | Complete Speedweeks coverage

Last year McDowell’s excursion to the wonky, wicked-fast half-mile was more modest — finishing sixth, 16th, sixth and 25th in that order during February’s DIRTcar Nationals — but it ushered him into one of his finest seasons: his first double-digit victory campaign since 2004 (a total of 10 wins) and a sensational Topless 100 crown that saw him outmatch Jonathan Davenport and Ricky Thornton Jr.

In that same vein, McDowell’s latest trip to the Sunshine State at this past weekend's Sunshine Nationals could very well bring about another seismic, life-altering shift: Is this the beginning of the end for the 57-year-old? In other words, could this be McDowell’s final year as a Dirt Late Model driver?

“It could be. It could be,” said McDowell, who then started to paint the fuller picture of those attention-grabbing words. “It could be one of our last years. We’re having some sponsors move around at the end of this year, so if we have some partners to come in to create some opportunities, then we can (race in 2025).

“If Shane (McDowell, Dale’s brother and car owner) needs to do this with someone else, that’ll be OK with me, too. He has to do what he has to do to continue on. I don’t know. We just have to wait and see what’s put in place.”

To put a long and complex story short, there are fundamental partnerships that are in the final year of multi-year contracts, and the elder McDowell who drives for his younger brother isn’t totally sure if those deals could be renewed if he remains as the team’s driver.

It’s not because of his ability — not in the slightest — nor because those business relationships are eroding. With McDowell’s age comes uncertainty for partners that strictly do business on multi-year deals rather than a season at a time: How long is he going to stay competitive? When are his reflexes going to slow so much there’s a point of no return? Are double-digit win seasons something to expect or is that the absolute ceiling?

Those are questions McDowell understands from the business point of view because he’s leery of those very things, too. And he isn’t naive to the dynamic of big businesses.

“With corporations, you never know. They’ll do it two or three years at a time,” McDowell said. “Some of them just do one year at a time. We have been fortunate to do multi-year top programs. But as things change and if they go in a different direction with their advertising budget, that’s the stuff you have to work on. The biggest thing is, we have to keep these people in these companies race fans. If they’re race fans, then the money gets directed in motorsports and what we’re doing.

“If that changes, that’s sometimes more challenging. Is it impossible? No. But it is challenging to rekindle their involvement and reintroduce them so to speak. That’s the biggest thing. … Obviously for their funding, they have to get the bang for their buck. With all the streaming, they do that. And with the competition level, it’s tough. You can’t have every driver up front at one point in time.”

If anything, McDowell is as relevant as ever by keeping himself up front, and that’s all that matters at the moment. And while he’s hardly at his brother’s race shop anymore, he’s applied himself more mentally in this final hour of his career than any other stage of his 43 years of racing.

Thanks to the streaming era, McDowell is finding himself watching races rather obsessively to see how Ricky Thornton Jr., Bobby Pierce and Hudson O’Neal have taken the sport by storm over the last year — studying, observing and analyzing their every move, even if those specific three are half of his age.

“I’ll be honest with you, I’ve had to watch and change my driving style and the way I drive,” McDowell said. “The way I race, I’ve had to change that. I’ve had to watch these young guys and try to mirror that driving style sometimes. If they’re making it work, you have to get on the train or stay at the train station.

“What’s happened in our sport is you used to have to learn patience,” McDowell added. “Now, you have to learn aggression. And that’s a good thing for our sport. The problem is those younger guys have better luck at the aggression than us older guys.

“Years ago, like 10 to 15 years ago, if you drove the cars like that, you weren’t going to win a feature race.”

It’s well documented and plainly obvious that the driving force behind Thornton’s and Pierce’s respective 34-win campaigns from last year is, first and foremost, because of their willpower to get something out of their race car that others seemingly cannot replicate on a consistent basis.

McDowell implied that the sport of Dirt Late Model racing is undergoing another generational shift, the third that he can recall distinctly. The other two are the years succeeding Kevin Rumley’s infamous device that would been banned following the 2015 season, and then Joe Garrison and Skip Arp revolutionizing the technical game in the late 1990s.

“Kevin’s deal with what he did with the spring package has changed our platform, a lot like when Joe Garrison and Skip Arp changed it with the shock and a spring behind (in the late 1990s),” McDowell said. “I really feel like now, you watch these races, and I watch how hard these guys drive and how aggressive they are, it makes it exciting. But the cars allow that to happen.

Dale McDowell motors through Volusia Speedway Park's turns one and two on Jan. 19 with Tim McCreadie behind. (Trent Gower/trentgowerphotography.com)

“The cars are stuck harder, and there is more aero and all that. We have a good product. The racing is awesome. You might have a guy’s winning percentage be up like Ricky Thornton last year, but he didn’t have all those wins from up front. He was in the back passing. Our product is really, really good. It’s fun to watch. But I also know getting out of the car, I’m winded pretty good, too.”

What’s most remarkable is that McDowell’s strong suit has conformed to the more high-octane, intimidating racetracks dirt-track racing has to offer. Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, Volunteer Speedway in Bulls Gap, Tenn., Wythe Raceway in Rural Retreat, Va., and last week’s stop at Volusia all fit the aforementioned bill of places McDowell has won at since 2022.

“I’m getting older, and I don’t know if aggression is my strong point, but we seem to run good and decent at the high-speed places,” McDowell said. “And that’s odd because when I grew up, I grew up on short-track stuff, and so it took me forever to finally learn to get around the bigger racetracks. Now, I don’t really have an explanation for it. We do seem to have a good package for this types of racetracks.

“I don’t know if I’m a good driver for those types of racetracks. It looks like the guys are that more aggressive at those speeds would be a little better. But hey, whatever works, we’ll go with it.”

Summing up his evolution to keep up with the times “has been challenging,” said McDowell, who then added that “the sport is in good places everywhere except financially.”

“It does cost a lot to do these things,” he said. “It’s tough on everybody right now financially to run these programs. To do that, obviously you have to weigh out what your options are. And you go to as many races as you can.”

McDowell is estimating 45 to 50 races for himself this year. Last season, he logged 41 starts, and the year before he ended up entering 52 events. In spite of 19 wins these last two years, which is the most he’s had in a two-year span in more than two decades, McDowell’s closely evaluating himself this season to genuinely discern whether he pictures himself on a competitive trajectory or not.

“That can go two ways. If (Shane) had funding for the next four or five years, I’m not sure I would stay competitive that long,” McDowell said. “Hopefully you can. But in time, can you? Last year was a big boost in what we accomplished. We had some luck go our way. We ran fast at times. We did have a successful year. But at any point I feel like I start losing reflexes or whatever, then I’m out.”

On the brighter side, should McDowell maintain his current pace and renew whatever has to be renewed on a partnership level, continuing forward for at least another year makes all the sense.

“If we keep partners in place and funding in place, and I can keep up, then we’re liable to go another year at it,” McDowell said. “And if not, then we’ll figure that out. We really won’t know until the end of the year. It all comes down to your key sponsors that make everything happen. You know, that’s really important. Not just the sponsors we have on our car, but all the people who are out there sponsoring these race cars creating opportunities for all of us. Sometimes we don’t appreciate that. We only appreciate our own. But I appreciate all of them who are out there. We wouldn’t be where we are without them.”

When the day does indeed come, McDowell won’t use the overused and sometimes ill-judged word retirement. When McDowell says this could be the last year, it’d be the last year of his competitive Super Late Model career.

“I don’t want to do a retirement-type year because I’ll continue to race periodically,” McDowell said. “It might not be at the (Super) Late Model level, it might be some Crate races. I don’t know. I love the sport. I don’t know what the next step will be when I’m done being the seat. That’ll have a lot to do with it, too. I guess we’ll see what kind of opportunities come up for us, or for myself, or for Shane. There’s a lot of unknowns there.

“(Shane) and I have raced together a lot of years. … It’s been a fun ride, whatever happens. If this is it at the end of the year, you know, then that’s it for me and so be it. I’ll find something to do.”

Maybe this is the beginning of the end for McDowell. Maybe it isn’t. Whatever it comes to be, McDowell’s ready. Ready to keep winning and surpassing even his own expectations if he’s able, or ready to pay it forward to the next driver in line, whomever that hypothetically could be.

“I feel fortunate and blessed to be involved in this thing,” said McDowell, who finished seventh in Friday night's 35-lap World of Outlaws Case Late Model Series season opener. “I don’t feel my age sometimes, but sometimes when I get out, I do feel it. But it’s been fun, a lot of fun. Met a lot of good people in the sport. And a lot of good relationships.

“I definitely want to race as long as I can stay competitive with those guys. When I get to where I’m the issue, I’m going to be the first one to step out. But definitely this year, we’ve talked about it that we’ve been fortunate. We have really good partners. We wouldn’t be out here today without all the partners on the car. That’s the key. 

"Obviously when you start changing that stuff up a bit, you have to reevaluate your program and see how much you can do financially. We’ll know more what’ll happen at the end of the year I’ll say.”