CLINT BOWYER, No. 15 5-hour ENERGY Toyota Camry, Michael Waltrip Racing
What is this race week like for you?
“The Daytona 500 for me is so challenging – it’s frustrating, it’s exciting. It’s just a weird weekend because it’s our kick off to the season so everybody is excited and it’s the first day of school, but oh by the way it’s the biggest day of school. The most prestige is on the line with the very first crack at racing for the year. It is very, very hard to balance all that. You want to get the year started off on the right foot. You want to get the year started off with a Daytona 500 win. It’s very hard to balance all that, but at the end of the day it’s all about the Daytona 500 and winning the Daytona 500 when you get here for this week.”
How important is it to have fun regardless of performance?
“It’s always important to have fun because if you’re having fun then the people around you are having fun. It lets them be at ease and I feel like it allows them to do their job and not be pressured. There’s so much pressure in this business anyway. Don’t get me wrong, when we have a year like we had last year, I was having fun on the outside, but behind closed doors I wasn’t having much fun in meetings and things like that. It’s hard to balance that because you know there’s people that work so hard whether you run good or whether you run bad – a lot of times they work twice as hard when you’re running bad to try to catch up and try to fix through the problem then they are when you’re running good. It’s easy to be selfish and be pissed off because you’re not running good, but you can’t lose sight of the fact that there’s a tremendous amount of effort being put in place no matter if you’re running good or bad.”
Have you ever hit the pace car?
“I’ve never crashed a pace car driver, but we’ve bumped them. You’re just excited because it’s the start of the race and oh by the way if you’re bumping the pace car, you’re running really good and you qualified good so you’re in a good mood. It’s always fun because there’s people in there – usually a celebrity of something – and you want them to have the experience too. You know they’re going to go home and say, ‘He hit me and the race hadn’t even started and he ran into us.’ I think it would be kind of funny to spin Buster (Auton, NASCAR pace car driver) down in the grass sometime though. That would be hilarious. He wouldn’t think that would be funny.”
Are you looking forward to getting the season started?
“I’m looking forward to the season and to be honest with you, for us we’ve got to get things turned around. We have to prove ourselves and I knew last year – I’m weird about thinking – but when we blew up at the start of the year at the Daytona 500, I knew something just didn’t feel right because we’ve always been able to come down here and run pretty good and get the year started off right and leave here with momentum and excitement and confidence. We were all dejected leaving the first race so that was not very good.”
How much does mental confidence play into a season?
“It’s mental and it’s sports. I think 85 percent of it is mental on not only the driver’s part, but all the way across the board. You have to believe you can do this and when you do you just figure it out. Even if you’re behind or whatever else, if everybody believes that you can go out and win races you do. In 2012, we came here and run well. We went to Phoenix and the right front fell off of it and caught on fire and had all sorts of trouble and we went back and had a meeting and (Brian) Pattie (crew chief) said, ‘Don’t say another word, I’ve got it handled and you’ll be fast next week.’ Confidence – that was all it took. We went to the next week and we were fast and we were fast the rest of the year. Look at Kevin Harvick, same type of deal – a new broom always sweeps good, everybody knows that. You have to be able to continue that mentality and we’ve got to get back to that.”
How many drivers can win Daytona?
“That’s what’s wild about Daytona and the circumstances, I really believe that there’s 20 cars that can win. That’s given the right situation and there could be more than that if they have the right car behind them. There’s only probably when it really boils down to it, maybe eight that can go out in a drag race and win competitively, but all you have to do is get yourself in front of them, strategize and place yourself in front of one of those cars and you can win. If he doesn’t have anywhere you go than you can manipulate that. You have a lot of control of what’s going on and a lot of people say you just throw the dice on the table and see what happens and I don’t believe that. Luck has to be there, but you’ve got to give luck as many opportunities as it can to showcase.”
Is it difficult to continue to be positive and constructive during a bad season?
“It’s hard because selfishly you’re really mad and frustrated and you want to point fingers, but there’s so many people that work so hard no matter if you run good or bad, those people are still working and putting that same effort in and probably more so when you’re running bad then when you’re running good. It’s hard to be respectful of those people and allow them to do their jobs. If you get to beating down on them, you’re not going to get a different result. At the end of the day, you have to be stern and you have to demand different results. That being said, Rob (Kaufmann, team co-owner) and Michael (Waltrip, team co-owner) and everybody changed their mentalities and changed a lot of the things we were doing at MWR to get to where we were. We’ve restructured and put a lot of people in different situations. The comradery at the race shop is already way better. I feel like there were a lot of people with their hands tied, maybe too managed and not let them really showcase their talents because there are so many smart people in this business – engineers, they’re coming through the woodwork. There are so many smart, younger people that are coming through the engineering world that have racing backgrounds. Some that were racers that didn’t make it and now they’re in it. There’s just a tremendous amount of talent in the engineering side of this sport, but you have to allow that talent to showcase and give them an opportunity and some of those guys at MWR didn’t. I feel like now it’s a group effort. When you’re in the meetings there’s a lot of people and a lot of voices being heard and you didn’t necessarily hear that last year.”
How do you wipe away last season and start fresh?
“Last season, I had to be reminded at media day a couple weeks ago just how bad our season was – I forgot about it. I was really not very happy that I showed up there as a matter of fact because it bummed me out. I left and called (Brian) Pattie (crew chief) on the way home and said, ‘Do you realize how bad we sucked last year. I was reminded all day long thank you very much. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen again.’ Once again, he assured me that it won’t. Love his attitude. He’s a lot like me, he’s a racer and every time I’ve ever had him tell me it will be better and I’ll do a better job, he’s been spot on and he’s done that for me. I believe him.”
How important is racing in the Sprint Unlimited this season?
“It’s just practice. I used to have the Nationwide race and things like that to get acclimated with your spotters and everything. I’ve been driving a tractor. It’s been a long off-season and nobody has tested, nobody has been in a car and nobody has been acclimated to your guys and everything else. Just to show up cold turkey and not be ready is real for the Daytona 500 and I believe that. Having that race under our belt with all of us able to talk and (Brian) Pattie (crew chief) on the box, just to get in sync with one another before the big dance is what that race is all about.”
