| | | | | | REDEMPTION | Clint Bowyer bidding for redemption at '08 Daytona | |
| | By Bruce Martin / SportsIllustrated.com DAYTONA BEACH, FL -- While his teammate, Kevin Harvick, was winning last year's Daytona 500 in dramatic style by edging Mark Martin at the finish line by just a few inches, Clint Bowyer's car was rolling over and catching on fire.
Although the driver was uninjured, it added a "Stunt Show" element to last year's Daytona finish and gave the winner a chance to razz his teammate at Richard Childress Racing.
"It's Clint, man," Harvick said. "We razz him about getting out of bed in the morning. If he walks, we razz him, so we give him grief about everything.
"Everything happened so fast there at the end of the race and there was so much going on. I knew there were a lot of cars wrecked, but I didn't realize that Clint was the one upside down. So I think I saw it on SportsCenter the next day."
Bowyer returns to the Daytona 500 this year hoping he finishes right-side up rather than upside-down. But even after last year's unintended end to his race at Daytona, he went on to have the best season of his Cup career.
That's why Bowyer admitted to a bit of trepidation before heading to Daytona International Speedway last month for preseason testing.
"I called Jeff Burton and I was freaking out before I went down to Daytona to test," Bowyer recalled. "I was nervous about this season and was afraid I forgot how to drive and I wasn't going to be any good. His answer was you wouldn't be a good race car driver if you weren't nervous and I believe that.
"Richard Childress used to tell me Dale Earnhardt would come up to him and say, 'Man, I don't know if I can get it done for you this year. I don't know if I can do it.' He probably was nervous about it."
Strange considering that Bowyer finished third in the Cup standings last season and scored his first career victory in only his third season in the series.
Bowyer admitted to wondering if he could not only match last year's impressive accomplishments but improve upon them.
"I think any good racer worries about that," Bowyer admitted. "That's the competitive nature in you. You want to go out there and be the best. I'm constantly worried about that. It's something that's in you."
Bowyer probably shouldn't worry because he's a star on the rise while being a throwback to the race driver of the past.
He didn't come to the Sprint Cup Series from IndyCar racing or Formula One - he came from the dirt tracks of Kansas and Missouri.
That makes the driver from Emporia, Kansas a bit unique in this day and age because he's a throwback to simplicity and grass-roots racing.
"It is something to be proud of," Bowyer said. "Carl Edwards and Jamie McMurray and myself - we all came from the Midwest. We worked hard and went through the struggles of making it and definitely had those aspirations."
Bowyer grew up as a motocross racer until he was 16. That's when he decided to quit because he didn't enjoy it any more.
As a competitive individual, he didn't believe his skill level was where he needed to be to achieve big-time success, so he ended up working at a Goodyear tire store in Emporia.
"My boss had started racing a street stock car and I started going with them," Bowyer said. "The group I was hanging around with then - that's what I started doing. I was going to the races with them and was enjoying it and having fun and looked like something I wanted to be a part of."
With family support behind him, Bowyer started tearing up the dirt tracks in Kansas and Missouri.
There were two other drivers from those parts who were also getting plenty of attention in Missouri with Edwards from Columbia and McMurray from Joplin.
"It's funny because I knew of them but didn't really know them very well," Bowyer recalled. "With Carl, the very first time I raced against him we were at a modified race. It was my very first asphalt race I ever ran. I heard about this hot, hot shoe named Carl Edwards. I got over there and he was in this old modified. It was the ugliest thing I had ever seen."
When McMurray moved into the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, the crew that helped him in the late model stock car racing ranks came over to Lakeside Speedway one night when Bowyer was competing in a dirt race.
Bowyer's career picked up in 2001 and 2002 in the dirt modified ranks. He won multiple championships both years, won a regional championship in the Weekly Racing Series.
"That is when things started to open my eyes up that maybe I could make a living doing this," he said. "In 2002, I ran Lakeside on dirt on Friday nights and asphalt at I-70 on asphalt on Saturday night. In 2003, we ran a limited schedule in the asphalt touring series and raced in some dirt races."
Good fortune would come Bowyer's way in a most unusual way and it would eventually lead him to the Cup Series.
"We got an opportunity in an asphalt car, an old MB-2 car, went to Nashville and probably had the day that made my whole career," Bowyer recalled. "We went over there with little or nothing.
"Looking back at it knowing what I know now, what we accomplished that day was pretty spectacular and something that just doesn't happen. We went over there and none of us had really raced at that level. I got hooked up with Trent Owens, a guy that worked at Braun Motorsports and is still a good friend of mine. He came to the track with four springs, four shocks and a briefcase. We ran those four shocks and springs, qualified seventh and led. If it hadn't been for staying out there at the end, we would have probably won that race. We finished second. That was the day that during a rain delay, Richard Childress was watching the race on Speed Channel and gave me a call."
Bowyer is the first to admit that fate can often intervene in a race driver's career and in this case, it was very positive for his career.
Bowyer would win the Midwest Championship in the NASCAR Weekly Racing Series in 2002. He became a developmental driver for Richard Childress Racing and would eventually climb his way through the old Busch Series and earn a full-time Cup ride in 2005.
He's made the most of his success and the Kansan has become a legitimate contender, not only for this year's Daytona 500 but for the Sprint Cup title.
"A few years ago we had a development driver here named Clint Bowyer and he was standing in the corner while everyone was talking to the other drivers," Childress said. "Look at him now."
| | Posted February 12, 2008 , 12:08 am EST
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