Clint Bowyer: Season is ‘beginning to start rolling’
KANSAS CITY, Kansas – After a self-described “miserable” start to the season, Clint Bowyer is thinking everything is starting to get on track.
Bowyer, who is spending the 2016 season with HScott Motorsports before joining Stewart-Haas Racing in 2017 to take over for Tony Stewart, has two top-10 finishes in the last three Sprint Cup Series races.
His best finish in the first seven races of the season was 18th and he had four finishes of 30th or worse. The fifth 30+ finish came between the top 10s at Bristol and Talladega when Bowyer was 33rd and two laps down two weeks ago.
“I was struggling to get that kind of consistency where I was last year,” Bowyer said Thursday. “It is beginning to start rolling … We’ve got some good things coming that I’m excited about. That is the thing – when you are down, most of the time there is a reason, especially, when you are down as far as we are down.”
“We had work to do we are starting to get some new wave of cars built and get some things to where we all are satisfied with them and excited about bringing them to the race track and seeing what our hard work has done.”
Last year, of course, came with Michael Waltrip Racing. Bowyer made the Chase despite going winless and the team was in the midst of a dissolution as majority owner Rob Kauffman joined forces with Chip Ganassi Racing.
The downfall of MWR left Bowyer scrambling to find a ride for 2016 and beyond. With Tony Stewart vacating the No. 14 at the end of this season, mimicking the scenario Kasey Kahne experienced in 2011 with a bridge season at Red Bull Racing before joining Hendrick Motorsports made sense.
And while a title is very likely not happening in 2016 for Bowyer and he hasn’t won a race since 2012, he doesn’t think he’s done being competitive.
“No, we were with one of the best teams there was for seven years, was with a really good team for a few years and he decided to quit on me,” Bowyer said. “We are building back up. I know I’m going to a championship caliber team for three years after this one. You will see me back. By no means do I consider myself… I feel like you get the race cars underneath of you and you compete exactly where you have always competed. The history is there.”
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
