Bowyer rules Martinsville to win STP 500
MARTINSVILLE, Va. – When Clint Bowyer rolled in from the Kansas plains, another in the long line of shorttrack aces with plans to light up NASCAR, he had the talent and the personality to succeed.
He also had a connection. Team owner Richard Childress had been impressed with Bowyer in a race at Nashville, and soon Bowyer crossed the bridge that so many short-track studs seek but don’t find. He had an entry point.
Still, it wasn’t easy.
Bowyer ran his first full Cup season with Richard Childress Racing in 2006. He went winless that first year before scoring victories in 2007 and 2008. The shine eventually faded from the BowyerRCR relationship, and he moved on to Michael Waltrip Racing in 2012.
Bowyer got three wins there but was involved in the 2015 implosion of the team after NASCAR penalized MWR heavily for dancing around the rules in
the regular-season finale.
Bowyer then got a ride with HScott Motorsports with the promise that he would take over Tony Stewart’s cars at Stewart-Haas Racing the next season. It was a year in the wilderness as Bowyer struggled, and he was 0-for-36 and 18th in points last year at SHR.
The bottom line is that Bowyer reached Martinsville Speedway on Monday carrying a heavy load — a 190-race winless streak and questions about his ability to be a week-to-week threat. He had not led a race since last summer.
On Monday, an odd day to have a NASCAR race, all that melted away along with the hillside snow that remained from Saturday night’s spring storm.
Bowyer’s triumph in the STP 500 was no fluke.
He led 215 of the 500 laps in one of NASCAR’s toughest physical races, staying in front for the final 114 laps with Kyle Busch, one of the sport’s top chargers, shadowing him much of the way.
Racing is fun for Bowyer, even when he doesn’t win. Being around him, one expects a party to get the green flag at any moment. Having two young children — both part of Monday’s victory lane celebration — hasn’t dimmed his enthusiasm for goofiness and revelry.
The win was significant for other rea- sons. It came in the car Stewart formerly drove, the 14, and it gave SHR a fourth win in the six races this season, continuing the organization’s early-season rush. Aric Almirola almost won the Daytona 500, which would have made the team five-for-six.
“We’re focused on the quality of our race cars,” SHR vice president Greg Zipadelli said. “Every single one of them needs to be better than last year’s.” That goal seems to have been reached. Bowyer certified that by opening his post-race news conference with a loud “Woooooo!”
He admitted that he had “really screwed up and pissed a lot of people off,” while learning how to race in the short-track wars at Martinsville. And it was tough, he said, to watch his teammates — particularly champion and three-time winner Kevin Harvick — have success while he waited.
“It’s hard to see your counterparts have that success,” he said. “It made us want to get to victory lane.”
He wanted, he said, to have a victory lane photo with his 3-year-old son, Cash.
“The one thing always missing is a picture with him,” he said, holding Cash. “That changes your thought process and your reasoning for racing. You start to think about what really matters in life.
“The one thing I didn’t want him to do is go through life not knowing about that.”
The photos will prove he — and his dad — were there.