Was Clint Bowyer an option for driving Tony Stewart's car early?
Was Clint Bowyer ever a candidate to be a substitute for injured Tony Stewart?
Bowyer, of course, is the driver who was handpicked by Stewart to take over the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet in 2017 after the three-time Sprint Cup Series champion retires.
But when Stewart suffered a back injury in late January that will sideline him for an indefinite amount of time, speculation about who would replace him quickly began, with Bowyer one of the drivers in question.
Since Bowyer is already in line to succeed Stewart in 2017, why would SHR not just move him into the seat early -- at least until Stewart returned later this year?
While that scenario makes perfect sense on one hand, it's an over-simplification in today's NASCAR world where sponsor and team contracts loom large on how much flexibility drivers have.
Bowyer had already committed to running the full 2016 season at HScott Motorsports for team owner Harry Scott Jr., and with longtime sponsor 5-Hour Energy and other sponsors, before the news surfaced that Stewart had been injured in an ATV accident on the West Coast.
Although Bowyer received a call from Stewart-Haas Racing vice president of competition Greg Zipadelli regarding Stewart's injuries, he says there was never a discussion about him making the move to SHR early.
"It was weird," Bowyer said at Daytona International Speedway. "I heard about it through a friend. ... He kept saying, 'Bullcrap, I know you know. This is big.' (I said), 'I don't know what the hell you're talking about.' I literally hang up with him, I'm talking to (guys in the shop), asking, 'Have you seen anything on Twitter about Tony? What the hell is that all about?'"
And that's when Zipadelli reached out.
"Thirty seconds later, Zippy texts me, 'Hey, can you take a call? It's serious.' That's how all that transpired," Bowyer said.
Bowyer knew that with Speedweeks just around the corner, jumping in Stewart's seat wasn't an option.
"You know, how would you ever make that happen 12 days before the season, before you're going to be racing at Daytona?" Bowyer said. "And furthermore, I wanted Tony to come back. I'm glad that he chose to come back. However many races that is, we need him here, and I want him to come back and get back to his running up front and winning ways."
As for the nature of his conversation with Zipadelli, Bowyer said the former Stewart crew chief wasn't calling to see if he was available to sub in the No. 14 car.
"There wasn't any discussion about that," Bowyer said. "Just informing that Tony had gotten hurt. You hear a lot of things and stuff like that. At the end of the day, we were hammering down over at Harry Scott (the HScott Motorsports shop), literally as far as I didn't even have my seat mounted yet where I could get a pour to get my seat mounted. We were pressed for time getting things down."
