| | | | | | ON FOUR TIRES THIS YEAR | Bowyer finds notice with strong finish in points race | |
| | By Gary Graves / USA TODAY DAYTONA BEACH, FL -- Compared to the media hordes surrounding Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer's contingent barely registered on the radar on Thursday during NASCAR's annual media day.
That's fitting for a driver who tries to avoid the spotlight. Bowyer's press party was bigger than a year ago and reporters hung on to many of his words. That's just a few upsides from a 2007 season in which a win at Loudon, N.H., in the Chase for the Championship opener lifted his status from promising to up-and-coming driver.
Despite finishing a distant third in Sprint Cup points behind Johnson and Jeff Gordon, Bowyer became more recognizable to his peers and to the public.
"Last season, we could do what we wanted to do and when you left the hauler you could walk to the motor home," Bowyer said. "But this is such a big sport and things have started to change. When you go out to dinner people recognize you and for somebody who's never had that, it's kind of uncomfortable almost.
"But do you become a hermit? No. I'm still having fun, and having friends who want to have fun."
While the Kansan said he doesn't particularly like the media attention, his joking through many answers suggested he didn't dislike it, either. Most queries centered on the Daytona 500, a race that last year ended with Bowyer getting caught in a last-lap accident. His Chevrolet flipped and slid on its roof through the front-stretch grass before it landed upright in flames.
Bowyer can laugh about it now, consoled that it didn't affect teammate Harvick's whisker-thin victory over Mark Martin. And Bowyer left no doubt about the minimum requirement for the 50th edition of the race Feb. 17.
"Will I finish upright? I hope so," he said. "That's the name of the game. I'm looking forward to this race; I always love coming here. This is the biggie you want to win."
Bowyer's challenge this season is avoiding the fluke label. In 2007, a series of small steps during the 26-race regular season turned into a quantum leap during last year's Chase. Bowyer remained steady enough to qualify for the 10-race, 12-driver playoff, then became a player by winning the Sylvania 300 from the pole and giving Richard Childress Racing its first Car of Tomorrow victory.
A runner-up finish in his home state two weeks later put him in third place in points to stay and set a baseline for RCR's program. Harvick and Jeff Burton won races last season to make the Chase, but Bowyer's success in the next-generation car provided a read on the vehicle that begins full-time duty this season.
"We put three cars in the Chase, which was a good thing, and Clint was able to execute better than we were," Burton said. "Clint and those guys toward the end of the year were performing better than the other two teams were, and we all feed on that.
"That's what happens with a multi-car team; one team is typically doing it better than the other ones and the other teams are trying to catch up as quickly as they can and the team that's doing well is providing the help. And that help will come back around at some point."
The laid-back Bowyer didn't reflect on last season and is keenly aware that he might be as much of a target as Johnson and Gordon. For all the gains made in his second season he still feels the need to prove himself, as if he's starting over.
What Bowyer seeks most is to continue thriving under pressure, a trait that paid off at New Hampshire and carried him through the Chase. And he believes there's room to improve communication with crew chief Gil Martin.
Bowyer's first opportunity comes in Saturday night's Budweiser Shootout, an exhibition race featuring the previous season's pole winners and past Shootout champions. Besides trying to get a feel for the new chassis on the 2.5-mile superspeedway, he wants to see how it performs in traffic. He will carry that information to the 500.
"I didn't know he had flipped," Harvick said of last year's Daytona 500 finish. "Everything happened so fast, so much going on. I knew there were lot of cars wrecked, didn't realize Clint was upside down. I saw it on SportsCenter."
Bowyer hopes he will be on the screen as something more than a highlight after this season's opener.
"Coming off of Turn 4, it was shaping up to be the biggest finish in the history of the Daytona 500," Bowyer said. "Could it have been a bad situation? Yes, but the wreck was behind the race. It was fine."
| | Posted February 08, 2008 , 4:27 pm EST
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