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Bowyer Hanging Tough Despite Odds

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By TONY FABRIZIO, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 28, 2007

Updated: 10/28/2007 01:22 am

HAMPTON, Ga. - It's a little like the University of South Florida being talked about for the national championship game. Prevailing wisdom said it wouldn't happen this soon.
Clint Bowyer put himself in Nextel Cup championship contention when he qualified for the Chase and won the opener at New Hampshire. But his title bid has been brushed aside with skepticism, the assumption being that in his second season in Nextel Cup he isn't ready to overtake guys named Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart.

But entering today's fourth-to-last race of the season at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Bowyer is one of the few guys still in the mix - 115 points behind Gordon, 62 behind Johnson and 134 ahead of Stewart.

And he isn't content with third.

'We're on the outside looking in still,' Bowyer said. 'We've got to push harder. We've got to do better. We can't make mistakes, but we've got to pick our game up a little bit more these last four races and try to win this championship.'

Bowyer entered the Chase best known as the driver who crossed the finish line in the Daytona 500 upside down and on fire. He was the first driver to qualify for the Chase without a career victory and, as the 12th seed in the 12-driver field, wasn't given much of a chance.

But he won at New Hampshire after leading 222 of the 300 laps, and he finished second two weeks later at Kansas. Amid projections he would fold under pressure, Bowyer has finished in the top 12 of all six Chase races.

He has earned the respect of 2003 champion Matt Kenseth, who has made a career out of consistent top-10 finishes.

'I've been really impressed by Clint,' Kenseth said. 'The thing I like the most about him is he kind of came from the place where maybe me and Mark Martin and Rusty Wallace - maybe the generation before him - came from. You had to race hard up through the short tracks and work real hard to get there. He's a fair racer and a hard racer, but at heart he's a racer. He's not a movie star or whatever.'

Gordon agrees.

'If you look at his background, it's no surprise,' he said. 'The guy is a true racer, a great driver in all aspects - short tracks, dirt tracks.

'For whatever reason, we just haven't seen that side of him up to the Chase. We've seen consistency, but we haven't seen him really take it to the next level until the Chase started. I think the only reason that it's been a surprise is just because maybe he's being a little conservative, holding back, wanting to make sure he got himself into the Chase. Certainly since the Chase started, he's been as strong as anybody.'

The championship looks like a two-man race between four-time champion Gordon and defending champion Johnson, who are separated by 53 points, but Bowyer's record on intermediate tracks such as Atlanta suggests he shouldn't be counted out.

Bowyer has two second-place finishes during the Chase on 1 1/2 -mile tracks - at Kansas and Charlotte - and was sixth in March at Atlanta.

'I've been saying all along that I think we can pick up on all of our finishes from the spring races at these tracks,' Bowyer said. 'Hopefully we'll get out of Atlanta with a top-five and stay in the hunt for the thing.'

Bowyer had only two top-five finishes this year before the Chase, and neither was higher than third. He had led fewer than 100 laps before dominating at New Hampshire.

Coming in that low under the radar, the Kansas man in the Jack Daniel's car still isn't being treated as a legitimate contender.

'That's fuel for the fire,' he said. 'That's all it is. You sit down in your motor home, watch TV and the commercials come on. 'Come watch Tony Stewart chase down Jeff Gordon for the championship.' You're like, 'Man!'

'It wasn't any different when we were trying to make the Chase. Everybody said we were the team that backed into the Chase just because we hadn't won a race. That's just fuel for the fire. It makes you want to do good even more, so I like it. I want to keep it up.'

Reporter Tony Fabrizio can be reached at (813) 259-7994 or afabrizio@tampatrib.com.

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