Clint Bowyer let loose a little bit after a frustrating end to his Southern 500, but his comments were a little unfair to the underfunded NASCAR teams.
It’s hard to find anyone with a bad word to say about Clint Bowyer. That’s because he’s one of the truly real personalities in NASCAR today, a guy well worth rooting for and an excellent interview. Bowyer gave a memorable one after his rough end to the Bojangles’ Southern 500 on Sunday night, understandably frustrated after smashing into the back of Ryan Newman’s Chevy and then taking a fairly hard secondary hit from the outside wall.
Newman had slowed to enter Darlington Raceway’s notoriously tricky pit road entrance (even Jimmie Johnson, he of seven Cup Series championships, misjudged it on Sunday), and replays showed he waved out the window to signal he was pitting. The problem was that several lapped cars were between him and lead lap cars, blocking the view of drivers like Bowyer.
The lapped cars stayed high so Newman could slow and go low, but Bowyer simply saw back markers and dropped down while at full speed. The result was calamity that ended the night for the No. 14 Ford.
That’s important context for the interview Bowyer gave to NBC Sports, which you can see below. Some highlights:
- “I don’t know who the 99 car is, or whatever … ” – That was actually Derrike Cope, who Bowyer definitely knows since hes been around the sport forever, but since Cope doesn’t drive it every week, we’ll give Clint a pass there. And the car was sponsored by race sponsor Bojangles, no less!
- “I think I lapped him 50-some times, he’s all over the damn place.” – A little unfair as Cope ended the night only 20 laps down.
Bowyer did back off a little when he said “everybody deserves a chance out there,” but his disgust at lapped cars sounded pretty legit.
Of course, after he had a chance to cool down, we’re guessing Bowyer would likely not be quite as pointed when addressing the topic of the underfunded teams (it should be noted that there are plenty of NASCAR fans who agree in part or completely with his feelings too). In the heat of the moment, after seeing a fast car demolished through no fault of his own, it’s only natural that he’d be plenty upset. Even this writer admits to having a chuckle at the interview, simply because it’s almost impossible to stay mad at this guy.
That said, Bowyer should be the first person to have some empathy. It wasn’t too long ago, just two seasons, to be exact, that he was driving for HScott Motorsports in a car with no chance of winning each week and just trying to avoid being lapped most weeks. That’s not quite the same as driving for a team that rarely can keep up with the pack like StarCom Racing, but it’s an experience that Bowyer should still have pretty fresh in his mind.
Without those teams that scrape together what they can and show up each week, NASCAR Cup Series races wouldn’t even have close to full fields. Maybe it would be better to have, say, 30 fast cars than 40-car fields with 10 who are likely to see the blue and yellow flag, but it is what it is, and there’s no use picking on the little guys.
Lapped cars are part of the deal in racing, and more times than not, they stay out of the way. It’s unfortunate that they got in Bowyer’s way at Darlington, but we hope he’s able to find it in his heart to avoid targeting them next time.