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Exclusive: Clint Bowyer wants 'good job' his team is doing to become 'great'
With the 26-race Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series regular season nearing the halfway point, there are basically three groups of drivers now.
There are eight drivers who’ve won races already and know they are all but locked into NASCAR’s season-ending, 10-race playoff round.
These eight all know they will race for the championship along with eight more drivers who will earn playoff berths over the next 15 races.
Then there is a vast middle class of maybe 12-15 drivers who know that they have good enough equipment that if things fall their way, they can win a race and make the playoffs.
And there are another 15 to 20 who know their playoff hopes are either remote or non-existent.
The real stress is for the drivers in the middle class. Those drivers know they need to win as soon as possible to take the pressure off themselves and their teams and punch their playoff tickets.
Clint Bowyer of Stewart-Haas Racing is one of those drivers in the top half of the middle group. SHR is one of the sport’s elite teams and Bowyer enters Sunday night’s Coca-Cola 600 (5:30 p.m. ET, FOX) at Charlotte Motor Speedway ranked 10th in points.
Considering Bowyer is the only driver in the top 10 who is with a new team this year and considering he’s the only driver in the top 10 working with a new (for him) crew chief in Mike Bugarewicz, that’s pretty impressive. Especially when you add the fact that SHR changed manufacturers over the winter and now races Fords.
But Bowyer still needs to win if he wants the piece of mind of being locked into the playoffs, and to break a personal 160-race winless streak dating back to Charlotte in October 2012.
In an exclusive interview with FOXSports.com, Bowyer talked about what winning a race would mean.
“I need to win a race,” Bowyer told FOXSports.com. “For myself, for my fans, for our organization. “I’m in a ride that’s capable of doing that and we’ve just got to get it all together.”
So far this season, Bowyer’s best finish was second to Jimmie Johnson at Bristol Motor Speedway. He also had a third-place finish at Auto Club Speedway, so it’s not like he’s struggling to be competitive.
But still, Bowyer needs a win and he knows it.
“We’ve gotten close a couple of times, had some good runs. We’ve been solid,” said Bowyer. “We’re doing a good job. But we need to capitalize on an opportunity soon and get a win and get all that behind us.”
And it’s hard to argue with his logic.
“We need to win to have that confidence, that pep in our step, to compete for a championship at the end of the year,” said Bowyer, who has finished as high as second in points. “We need that win, we need to get ourselves established for the postseason.”
The good news for Bowyer is he knows he and the team are close to winning. And since he and Bugarewicz are still getting to know each other and still building a notebook, Bowyer feels the team has a lot of upside to come.
“We’re doing the things that it takes to be consistently competitive to put yourself in position to go after a championship and to go after a race win,” he said. “We’ve just got to step it up a little bit more, a little bit more.”
And with 15 regular-season races to go, Bowyer will have plenty of chances.
“You got be up front. You’ve got to be able to capitalize on those opportunities. And we’ve been doing that,” he said. “We’ve been doing a good job. It’s time to step it up and become a great job week in and week out.”
Stewart-Haas Racing
