Clint Bowyer surprise winner at Loudon in a runaway
RACING//MONDAY JOURNAL
By Mike Mulhern
LOUDON, N.H.
Clint Bowyer before the race said he had “nothing to lose” in this year’s NASCAR title chase, because he was coming into the playoffs underrated, winless and last in the 12-man standings. Well, today he’s facing a different picture, after yesterday’s dominating performance in winning the Sylvania 300, the first round of the 10-race championship race.
“I knew we could do it,” the always upbeat Bowyer said after finished more than six seconds ahead of runner-up Jeff Gordon and jumping up to fourth in the playoff standings.
“But I was about to throw up the last 30 laps. I wish Richard was here, but I’m sure he’s partying in Mongolia. I was hoping nobody would crash; and the cautions didn’t come, and we won.”
It was the first Nextel Cup tour victory for the second-year driver from Emporia, Kansas. But car owner Richard Childress wasn’t here to see it; he was in Mongolia on a hunting trip.
Chevrolet drivers swept the day, taking the top six spots, and had no competition at all from rival car makers. Bowyer, 28, is the fourth first-time winner this season, and he led 222 of the 300 laps in front of another sellout crowd announced at 101,000.
The top seven finishers were men in the chase. The day’s biggest loser was Dodge’s Kurt Busch, who had some engine trouble and finished 25th. But there were no calamities.
Ford’s Carl Edwards, who lost his primary car in Friday practice and had to play catch-up the rest of the weekend, finished 12th. Denny Hamlin finished 15th, and fellow chasers Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton, Bowyer’s teammates, both finished a lap down, in 17th and 18th.
So the championship standings heading this week to Dover, Del.— Teammates Jimmie Johnson and Gordon are tied at the top (Johnson gets the unofficial tie-breaker nod because he’s got more wins), with Tony Stewart 10 points down, Bowyer 15 down, Kyle Busch 35 down, Martin Truex Jr. 40 down, Matt Kenseth 54 down, Edwards 63 down, Hamlin 82 down, Harvick 88 down, Burton 91 down, and Kurt Busch 102 down.
“Starting 18th got us behind, but the effort today was great, and I couldn’t be happier,” Gordon said after his 500th career start. “We weren’t quite good enough for Bowyer, but I just wasn’t very good on short runs early so we made adjustments, but those adjustments then hurt us on long runs.
“But how can you complain about second? This is a great way to get the chase started.
“And I think everybody is happy for Clint. This just shows that anyone can win this championship.”
However NASCAR’s ‘second-season,’ the playoffs, opened with a mind-numbing 2-1/2-hour run that cast more doubt on the car-of-tomorrow, which apparently has some significant handling issues that make passing difficult.
Crew chiefs yesterday morning cranked up their complaints about the new model, after nearly two months of virtual silence on the topic, after NASCAR officials told them en masse essentially to keep their criticism to themselves: “Don’t air our dirty laundry,” is how one top crew chief put it.
Yet when crew chiefs were asked to go on the record with their complaints they generally shied away from it.
Nevertheless Jeff Gordon is not alone in worrying about handling problems at next week’s tour stop in Dover, Del. Engineers want more clearance under the funny ‘splitter’ nose, in order to make the new cars turn better. Some crew chiefs now say NASCAR needs to go even further and come up with an entirely different nose piece.
THE NASCAR NOTEBOOK
If there’s a NASCAR race in a political season, it’s hard to keep politicians at bay, and yesterday presidential hopeful Rudolph Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, toured New Hampshire International Speedway, stopping by Jack Roush’s hauler.
Meanwhile over on Staten Island, that plot of land that the France family’s International Speedway Corp. had hoped to build the New York City Speedway on will apparently become a huge trucking center – a company is buying it to build a 3.5-million square foot warehouse distribution center.
Greg Biffle’s season continues to baffle those watching him. He’s got one more season on his contract with Jack Roush, and negotiations on an extension ended months ago, and since then Biffle has had little success, certainly not as much as his teammates. And the garage is again awash in speculation that he may be talking with Dale Earnhardt Inc. about a ride there when his contract with Roush ends.
Car owner Richard Childress is still pushing toward a full-time fourth Cup team, and he wants to make a decision by the end of the month at the latest. There are certainly a number of veteran drivers who will be available, but how attractive they might be to sponsors is unclear.
Kasey Kahne will apparently become Budweiser’s new NASCAR headliner, replacing Dale Earnhardt Jr. next season, and the announcement is expected Tuesday. Earnhardt is expected to announce Pepsi’s Amp energy drink as his new sponsor Wednesday; but Jeff Gordon hints it might be otherwise: “Have you tried the Jeff Gordon Energy Drink by Pepsi? There’s a huge investment there.”
Night-time racing lights are expected to be installed at the International Speedway Corp.’s Chicagolands track.
One reason for Doug Yates’ surprising decision to pull the plug on that merger with Paul Newman and Carl Haas: Newman-Haas hemmed and hawed too long when Yates was trying to sign J. J. Yeley for 2008. Yeley wound up taking a ride with the new Jeff Moorad-Tom Garfinkel team.
Back in July Sprint Nextel announced a new contest to be tied in with the Nextel Cup championship chase, to be called SprintSpeed Million, with 12 people to be ‘paired’ with the 12 championship playoff drivers, and the lucky fan paired with the eventual tour winner earning $1 million. No word yet on who the 12 finalists are.
Jeff Gordon’s huge ‘regular season’ points victory will likely result in a change in how points are set up for next year’s playoffs. Gordon finished the first 26 races more than 400 points ahead of Jimmie Johnson, but Johnson was ‘seeded’ first for the playoffs by NASCAR because he had more wins. NASCAR’s Brian France is expected to give the regular season ‘winner’ a few more points for the start of the 2008 championship chase. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they tweak it like that,” Gordon said.