Bowyer, crew chief Martin planning to break back into top 12
By Rea White - Associate Editor
Thursday, July 24, 2008
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This weekend, it's Clint Bowyer and his Richard Childress Racing team's turn to be on the outside looking in when it comes to the Chase For The NASCAR Sprint Cup. Odds are, it will be someone different come Monday.
Especially with the attitude that crew chief Gil Martin has instilled in the team. While the seven-race run to the setting of the championship field will be tough on all drivers, Martin and his group are working together to make sure the pressure doesn't become overwhelming. They've learned a lot about themselves this season and now feel like the bad spots they've endured have only strengthened their bond and made them more of a threat in this run to the Chase.
After finishing third in the championship last season – in his second season with RCR - Bowyer has endured a more tumultuous run this year. While he has a win and nine top-10 finishes, he's also been caught up in some on-track action that has left him outside the top 30 on a couple of occasions.
Now, after finishing 22nd at Chicago, he's fallen outside the top 12 for the first time since the season's fifth race. What is this stretch of the season like for the team?
"It is nerve-racking," Bowyer said at Chicago. "I mean it is crunch time, do-or-die time. Now it is all about making your way in to that Chase."
That could force the tightly knotted group of teams in that seventh through 13th position in the standings, a group separated by a mere 62 points, to make some much more daring calls. Bowyer is just 27 points out of 12th.
"It's stressful, for one thing, just because in any given week you can be eighth or 13th," Martin says. "From here on out, I think you're going to have to take chances that you probably didn't want to have to take during the race, but that's what it's going to take to get in this thing because it is so close."
Martin adds that while it is surprising that the group is close in some respects, it's not that shocking when one looks organization to organization and sees the majority of the garage struggling to get a handle on NASCAR's new car at all the tracks. Outside of Joe Gibbs Racing's Kyle Busch, who has seven victories, no one has consistently performed well week to week in this model.
That might spread the pressure around a little more.
For Martin and his team, the push to make the Chase is something new. They were a surprising contender last season that vaulted from 17th in the standings the previous year. This year, things have been different from the start. Watched more closely, they've been a team people watched and waited to see if they could repeat that type of run. So far, for the most part, they have.
"We've got a different kind of pressure on us this year," Martin says. "Last year nobody expected us to make it so we were under the radar and everything else, but this year, since we have made it, I think everybody's looking at us basically to fail. With that being on us, and knowing that we've been there before, we have to prove the fact that we didn't get there by mistake. I think that's a little bit of added pressure, probably on Clint more than the team, so that's just something we have to do to try to keep everybody low key and not let the pressure get to us and not make any mistakes that could possibly knock us out of a race or just any mistakes with a race car. Anything that we can stop from happening, we've got to do that on our side."
To that end, the group is staying together. They keep one another occupied, keep the focus on running well and improving instead of letting anyone's mind drift to what could happen if they falter.
Always a tight crew, Bowyer's group is taking this run to the Chase in stride - and by acting as one.
"I think we do a pretty good job at that as far a team functions or team building that we do," Martin says. "All of the team goes out, whether we go to the movies or bowling, and everything else together. When we're out on the road, everybody is such a tight unit that we kind of keep the pressure off of each other instead of letting each other spend time brooding alone or thinking about stuff or thinking about what if this happens, we spend a lot of time talking to each other and I think that helps, as much as anything, keep the pressure off."
It doesn't hurt that Bowyer is racing in the Nationwide Series as well. While some might view that as a distraction, it's actually a good experience that keeps him from overthinking his Cup shot. He's leading the standings in that series and on track for a championship run there as well. Perhaps that will help keep the pressure off in the coming weeks.
Those weeks feature some good races for the team, especially the deciding race at Richmond International Raceway. Bowyer won there in May and has generally performed well at the track in the past. In fact, Martin can list off good things about most of the tracks coming up on the schedule.
He seems undaunted by the task at hand, by this seven-race run.
He knows that his team is capable of making the Chase, believes in his driver's ability to get them there.
After all, they've done it before. While this might not be a team that performs much different than it did last season, it is certainly a more experienced one. And that could be the key to moving back into the Chase and contending for the championship once more.
"I don't think that we're that much of a better team this year than last year, I just think that we're probably in the spotlight a little more," Martin says. "I think that everybody's become aware of what a good team this is, I guess is the way I should put it. We kind of flew under the radar a lot last year. … I think we kind of snuck up on everybody and this year everybody has paid a lot closer of attention. I think what has made us a better team this year is the adversity we've gone through because we've had some runs we're not accustomed to having this year and we’ve tested the teams mettle to see how strong we are. I think that we've seen, as a group, there hasn't been any finger-pointing or anything like that and everybody's got each others back and I think, to ourselves, we've proved what a strong team we are. So from the outside it probably appears that we've just come into our own but I think we're finding out, really, what we've known all along the last four years."
- Mentioned Drivers:
- Clint Bowyer
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