Clint Bowyer racing with confidence, perfect timing
Richard Childress Racing's Clint Bowyer has gone from desperately trying to break into NASCAR's Chase For The Sprint Cup to sitting fifth in it. It's amazing what a difference a week can make.
Bowyer and his RCR team headed to Richmond International Raceway last weekend with a tenuous hold on the 12th and final position in the Chase. Roush Fenway Racing's David Ragan loomed just 12 points back and ready to strike. Bowyer's race started slowly, with Ragan looking like a threat to take the spot. But crew chief Gil Martin steadily worked to improve the car, gaining ground in terms of their own performance. Then Ragan got caught up in a couple of incidents, and Bowyer easily raced his way into the title-determining field with a 12th-place finish.
After the race, the 12-driver field was set based on bonus points, with 10 awarded for each victory, which boosted Bowyer to fifth thanks to his one win this season. He now trails points leader Kyle Busch and his Joe Gibbs Racing team by just 70 points.
Basically, that means the pressure has just shifted. Instead of feeling the weight of trying to make the so-called playoffs, Bowyer faces the pressure of attempting to win a championship - or of at least match his overall finish of third last season.
Bowyer says he's not letting that get to him.
"I mean, obviously you've got to get back in the swing of things," he said. "You've got to keep your nose to the grindstone and stay focused, and that's what's good about this Chase. It's only 10 races long. It's time to see what you're made out of, pull out all the stops and go for broke.
"That's what you're going after. … You've got to be able to run up front. If you don't, if you're not running in the top-five and winning
races, let's face it, you're not going to win the championship, and that's what it's all about. That's what the Chase is about is winning the
championship."
He admits, though, that there is really no way to avoid the nerve-racking nature of the format. It's simply a fact of life when there is so much on the line, so much to be gained in such a short span of time.
"It's a big deal winning this championship, and it's what you've worked the whole season for as a team," he said. "That's why you get paid the big bucks, so to speak, is to be able to handle these situations and lead your team to success."
Now, he heads to a track where he won last year to make a first strike in the Chase format. Can he do that again? He says that making the Chase was a "big, big momentum-booster."
Team owner Richard Childress agrees. "It was big," he said. "It’ll do [them] good, making the Chase."
Now, Bowyer not only looks forward to racing at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in this weekend's Sylvania 300 - a race he won last year - but also other places where he feels he runs well, such as his home track, Kansas Speedway.
He thinks that can get him off to a strong start as he attempts to win his first championship.
"These are good tracks for me in the Chase, and it's time for me to pull out all the stops and go for broke," he said. "Now that you're in this thing, you owe it to everybody – you don't want to be the 12th guy. We were the 12th guy coming in, and I want to be able to make sure that we're in this thing for a reason and not just to ride around."
He also thinks he has an additional asset in the Chase - teammates.
RCR's Jeff Burton and Kevin Harvick are also contending for the championship. While some might think that takes away from the overall effort and creates an intra-team struggle, Bowyer thinks it actually helps him in the title hunt.
And, if he falls out of contention, it leaves his organization with a shot at the title.
"I think you need to be teammates now more than ever. We need to lean on each other and learn as much as we can from each other week in and week out," he said. "You can't do this alone. You look at [Hendrick Motorsports'] Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson last year running one and two. They were every bit teammates in the Chase as they there all season, and that's the way we need to be.
"We need to work together, and we need to test together, and when we learn things we need to share and make our organization as powerful as it could possibly be. There's a lot of things in the Chase – there are a lot of variables that could put you in or out of this championship hunt: crashes, part failures, things like that. You never know what's going to happen. So we've got to make sure that we have three equal chances at running for this championship, and the only way we can do that is working together and sticking together."
