NASCAR CUP SERIES
MONDAY, JULY 20, 2020
CLINT BOWYER MEDIA TELECONFERENCE
CLINT BOWYER, No. 14 Ford Mustang — HOW EXCITED ARE YOU TO BE AT KANSAS SPEEDWAY SOON? “Well, first of all, can you see my Ford hat? It is almost as cool as that Royals hat I see. I am really looking forward to getting back home. Obviously Texas we got a decent finish but not nearly where we need to be. To be honest, the way these draws, the random draw for just the top-12, thinking back to Talladega, that one last lap right there where we got in a wreck flipped positions with my teammate Aric Almirola. Boy, if I would have known then the difference that would have made a couple months later I probably wouldn’t have made that move. It has been a constant battle trying to dig ourselves out of a hole. The way that the draw is for the top-12 it basically just protects those guys and makes it virtually impossible for anybody outside of that to capitalize on that first stage which puts them in a really good position points wise for the rest of the race. Furthermore, it puts you in a situation to have to try to gamble either at the tail end of that first stage or throughout that second stage to try to capitalize off some points whether it be that second stage or set yourself up for the end of the race. Anytime you go to gamble we all know that it can either win or lose big. Nine times out of 10 the house wins from what I can see. So, I am kind of frustrated in a sense that I feel like over the last month and a half we have had a lot better runs than our stats show. Again, just constantly digging yourself out of a hole because of the way we start these races has been a challenge. Very, very challenging as a matter of fact. Going back to Kansas, I always love going back there. Obviously it is going to be drastically different not having fans. That is what put this sport on the map. That is what has kept it on the map all these years and without that, it is just a void that can’t be replaced. Are we putting a product on the race track? Yes. Are there people at home watching? Yes, the ratings show that and these are the things keeping us alive and relevant. I think the rest of the sporting world is fixin’ to see first hand just like we have experienced in the last few months the difference and challenges and impact of not having that fan presence there. It isn’t just the presence, it is the atmosphere and your event. Without that it isn’t quite the event that it could be or should be or would be.”
SCOTT MILLER SAID IF THERE ISN’T QUALIFYING BY THE PLAYOFFS, THEN THE SANCTIONING BODY MAY ALTER HOW THE STARTING LINEUPS ARE SET, AND HE CONFIRMED NO PRACTICE OR QUALIFYING THROUGH DOVER INCLUDING DAYTONA ROAD COURSE. DO YOU HAVE A THOUGHT ON THAT? “I voted to practice at Daytona. I mean, I guess I’m probably unique since at least I have some laps on the racetrack. It was a long time ago. I don’t even remember those laps, but I ran the Rolex 24
and have some experience on that track. But that being said, not in our cars, anything else I think it’s tall order to to show up there and to run a track that we’ve never been on before with a tire combination with the package, you know the aero, horsepower, everything we’ve never even seen before it’s it’s gonna be a crapshoot for everybody. I think there’s definitely drivers and teams that have experience of running at Rolex that will be ahead of the pack ahead of the curve. For sure. But, you know, these are challenging times. To ask the team to come up with a unique car again for a backup car and everything else. I mean, it’s saving them money, I get it, everything’s tight right now. So, you’ve got to give and take in this scenario, and I think that’s definitely a give for the Daytona race. I was actually shocked to hear you say that about Scott Miller and the starting procedures. I mean, that was just my complaint going in. But that just shows you that there’s some validity to that thought process. I mean, it’s literally every single time you start the race, you’re behind the eight ball.
Not only are you behind the eight ball, you’re behind the eight ball of cars that are capable of winning races. I mean, there’s a reason they’re up front. But it’s in a situation right now where you’re protecting those fastest cars on the racetrack. And if I’m a promoter and got my promoter hat on, I wouldn’t think that that would be necessarily the best case scenario to put on a great race for fans, you know, the more you shake those starts up, the better off. Whether I watch my dirt late models compete, modifieds, whatever the case may be all over the country. There’s inversions and things like that and that’s a product of putting a product on the racetrack but I have no idea why. I don’t know why. Why the hell would we wait till the playoffs if we have a problem and we see it? Why would you wait to the playoffs to change it? You know that’s my frustration with a lot of things. If I’m running something and I know that I have a problem, I’m not going to wait weeks to fix it. I’m going to fix it now.”
BRAD KESELOWSKI TALKED ABOUT AND WAS PRETTY OUT THERE ABOUT THE FACT AFTER THE QUINN SITUATION THIS PAST WEEKEND, HE’D LIKE TO BE ABLE TO SEE DRIVERS GRADUATE INTO THIS LEVEL AND EQUALLY BE ABLE TO SEE THEM REMOVED FROM THIS LEVEL. DID YOU HEARD THOSE COMMENTS? WHAT DO YOU THINK? “Well, I think the graduate process is definitely a thing that we’ve always had. Right? We’ve always had graduation processes. But that being said, some of its getting lax, you know, with putting cars on the racetrack and business reasons you’re putting people on the racetrack that you wouldn’t have 10 to 15 years ago. And that isn’t an excuse, that shouldn’t be the case. Just because you have money or whatever else, you shouldn’t be able to just buy your way onto the racetrack. And I’m not saying that whoever that was, had that happen. But nonetheless we’ve been doing this, what, 15 years or so. I know my competitors on that racetrack. And every year there’s a new one or a couple new ones and I know what I’m up against. I don’t like having guys that just show up and race every now and then at this level of racing. That’s not right. You don’t just show up and line up against Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. You shouldn’t be able to do that against Stewart Haas Racing or Joe Gibbs Racing or anything else. That’s not a knock to them.
I don’t necessarily agree. I think if you do a good job with your graduation process of graduating, I don’t think you have to worry about ever knocking anybody down. I guess that’s my point and that is his need to do a better job of making sure we’ve got the right guys on the racetrack and if you do a good job at that, you’ll never have to remove them.”
HAVE YOU STARTED TALKING TO STUART HOUSE YET ABOUT NEXT YEAR OR IS WITH EVERYTHING THAT’S JUST BEEN GOING ON AND THE WAY IT’S MADE RACES AS YOU’RE DOING THAT? ALL THAT STUFF’S GETTING PUSHED GONNA BE PUSHED LATER AND LATER THAN NORMAL? “No, I haven’t really talked to them much about it. I’ve been talking to partners and things like that and just trying to do everything that I can do to make sure that all the things are lined up for next year for them. I mean, that’s what I can do … we’ve got to, I’ve got to do a better job inside the race car, we got to do a better job of getting this 14 car back up front where it belongs. Doesn’t matter what you do outside the car if you’re not taken care of what is in the car, you shouldn’t be in any of them. Stewart-Haas is a wonderful organization. I want to be there. I want to retire there and and I love the opportunity and the people behind it. I believe all the pieces of the puzzle are there. The manufacturer in Ford, I mean, we’re sitting here representing Ford today and you couldn’t ask for a better manufacturer that’s invested in the sport the way they are. I just again, it’s a perfect fit for me. We started off really, really well. Started the front side of this pandemic well. We’ve run into some bumps in the road. And honestly, I hate to say it, I can almost pinpoint it on Talladega. You put it on Talladega and flip that over. And the next two months have been drastically different because of that, literally, every time we start the race we’re behind. And you’re behind cars that are hard to catch up with. If those guys hang, you know, 8 to 10 points of stage points on you. It’s a bit virtually impossible. You’ve got to do something then to try to differentiate yourself and nine times out of 10 the way that these races are, things don’t work out. Then you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t on a strategy call. You know, three weeks in a row, we were running in a single digit and look to have an easy single digit finish. And two top fives out of that the caution comes out a couple laps after you pit and the rest is history. You end up 15th to 20th. I mean it’s that fast it can change. But again it was a gamble because we were trying to catch up so anyway. To answer your question I really haven’t talked about it but you know, I’m more worried about soon as you get down here getting down to the shop.
“I’m going to go down actually and you know, get with my guys and right now it’s just everybody’s it’s very challenging under these times with the pandemic to get in the shop to work with one another you know, no practice Bob. Hell, we are new to this year together with John and all my guys, we’re trying to figure each other out. I mean, we stubbed our toe bad yesterday in Texas, but you unload and you’re laying in the bed you made. I looked at our pictures. Crew sent me some pictures this morning of our car and it was like oh boy, you know. I was floating the nose really bad off it to all the right front was putting air and the left front was dragging the ground. I was getting it three and four and it was on the splitter and it was floating the nose off of two. Again, those little minute things that make up the difference. And then with no practice, you don’t have an opportunity to fix any of those.”
COMING BACK TO KANSAS SPEEDWAY YOU USUALLY HAVE A PACKED ITINERARY WITH FAMILY FRIENDS BARBECUE ROYALS GAME. OBVIOUSLY IT’S GOING TO BE DIFFERENT BUT WHAT’S IT GOING TO BE LIKE FOR YOU COMING BACK TO KANSAS SPEEDWAY UNDER THIS PANDEMIC UMBRELLA? “Always exciting to go back home, it’s home. I mean, it’s literally that way. I mean we all experienced that a lot of people move away from home, going to college chasing their dreams, get a job, whatever. It’s always fun to go back home and see things and for me, having family now and having kids it’s fun for me kind of like I did with my parents to go back and see them and show them something about where you came from. That being said Kansas City kicks ass. It just does and I’m not saying that as far as pride of being from Kansas I mean I can anybody in the garage area goes to Kansas City and every single one of them are blowing up your phone I mean, where’s the hotspot where’s the barbecue joint to go to? It’s like, dude, all of them. All of them are knocking it out of the park and you know the power and light district and the sporting, I mean, it’s you can’t ask for a better time to be in any city than right now in Kansas City. And you know, the track, I’ve said time and time again, so proud of … we talk about the puzzle in our sport and all pieces of the puzzle have to come together. I mean just look at the impact in Wyandotte county when they put that piece of the puzzle at Kansas Speedway in there. Awesome part of town and going from Lakeside Speedway growing up over there and racing over there. So proud to call that place home and to see what’s happened because of that. Met so many good friends over the years and you know, just had a good winter. I saw Mahomes and Kelce over to Lake and got with them a day and had fun with them. And, you know, Eric Stonestreet got a new place over there and sent me pictures. Who would ever thought he’d enjoy fishing and everything he’s been doing on his lake. It is just a really good place to be from and to enjoy and looking forward to bringing in our sport there once again. Another thing about it is I think that the city embraces our sport well. When I go across the country, part of that’s our doing and and on us to be able to promote our sport and do that, but honestly, if you have something and you’re valid and relevant, the city embraces that and I see a lot of NASCAR when we come into town.”
DO YOU KEEP IN TOUCH WITH NED (YOST) AT ALL? “You know, I haven’t talked to Ned in a while and that’s my fault. You know, in every conversation with Ned is just like no other. The man is full of wisdom and always has something bright to say. The way I’m racing right now, that’s exactly what I’m doing. And I’m gonna call old Ned this week. Get a rah rah speech. Get my ass up off the plank here and off the bench and get me in the game. That’s what I need.”
HOW EXCITED ARE YOU TO GO BACK TO MICHIGAN HAVE THE DOUBLEHEADER AND EVERYTHING THERE UNIQUE YOU LEARN FROM AT POCONO AND WHAT YOU FEEL LIKE YOU LEARNED THERE THAT YOU COULD BRING INTO MICHIGAN IN TWO WEEKS? “Definitely looking forward to Michigan. Fast racetrack and when you talk about a fast racetrack you need fast hot rods and in our Ford Mustangs have been extremely fast up there. You know that Roush Yates horsepower is second to none when you’re talking about up on the pipe baby, and that track keeps it up there. You know, you’re just you never barely lift out of the gas. You are sailing around that place and I look for that track to be a track that we can contend for a win and get back in the right swing of things for these stage points. As bad as the race last week was, I gained some points on a 21 car and got a little closer to the 13th place. I look for a place like Michigan, Kansas this Thursday, I’ve got to get myself back in this top 12 if they’re not going to change the rules, you got to get back in the top 12 and get back in the swing of things so you can compete with these guys.”
OBVIOUSLY AFTER YOUR WIN THERE TWO YEARS AGO LAST YEAR WAS A LITTLE BIT OF STRUGGLE AT MICHIGAN ITSELF. DO YOU LOOK AT THIS YEAR AS MAYBE LIKE A LITTLE BIT OF A REDEMPTION TOUR TO TRY TO GET THE WIN? “Yeah, I mean, we’ve proven that we can do that. Our Ford Mustangs have been fast there. I think they’ll be fast again. It’s all about track position on these. God I hope they don’t bring this tire that we ran at Texas and Kentucky, but they probably will. And if they do, I’m going to have to get track position. Oh, by the way, we won’t have it when we start. Hopefully we can get it at Kansas and we won’t have to worry about that. But if not, we’re gonna have to gain it, gonna have to gamble somehow and rely on that to get to track position and hold on to it.”
WHAT IS THE SOLUTION OR WHAT’S YOUR IDEA IN MAKING THE DRAW BETTER OR HOW THE STARTING LINEUP IS DETERMINED? IS IT AN INVERSION WITH FASTEST LAP FROM THE PREVIOUS RACE? IS IT MAKING THE DRAW ONE THROUGH 16 BECAUSE THAT’S PLAYOFF NUMBERS? WHAT IS A BETTER IDEA THAN WHAT HAS BEEN HAPPENING NOW IN YOUR MIND? “I honestly think one through 20 would shake the race up well, and that puts me in a situation where I could start 20th. That’s not necessarily just putting it out there that it’s going to make my day better selfishly for me. I think that’s what the sport means. I think we’re putting our best cars right up front in the clean air on racetracks where we know that that’s important. I’m frustrated with this tire that we have. I think we all are and we’re protecting those guys. I think a one through 20 would probably be well. I saw that come up just like we all did. A fan actually had that idea of the week previous fastest lap but the problem with that, and I love the idea and that that mentality is phenomenal and I appreciate that fan for bringing that to the table. It’s a great idea. The problem with that is I can tell you who’s going to have the fastest lap. The guy in the lead when in the cleanest air. So that being said, again, it’s ] not going to shake the race up and in my opinion that’s what we need to do. The cream will rise to the top. The best teams will and if you can shake them up week in and week out in this scenario with no practice and everything else it will shake your environment up and make for a better race. I one hundred percent believe that.”
YOU RACE THURSDAY NIGHT SO YOU GET SUNDAY OFF. IN NORMAL TIMES A WEEKEND OFF FOR A DRIVER WOULD BE A BIG THING. BUT IN THESE TIMES WHAT DO YOU DO? WHAT DO YOU DO ON SUNDAY? HOW MUCH DOES IT MATTER TO HAVE THIS WEEKEND OFF? “Dude, scrambling. Literally scrambling. My wife is on me non stop. What are we doing? And my plan man, you get an idea and go down that path and that doesn’t work. I’ve been going over the lake a lot and I enjoy that. But it’s like, I want to go somewhere different, I want to take my family somewhere. The kids are fixin to go back to school or whatever the heck that’s going to look like. It’s just hard, you know. Camping. I love to camp, you know, we camp every weekend anyway. And it’s kind of funny to say, oh, let’s take the bus and go camp somewhere. We were going to do that. Good luck finding a campground somewhere you can get into to do that. I would say we’ll probably end up back over at the lake. It makes the most sense. It’s two hours from Kansas City or three hours drive over there, but who knows? We’re trying to figure it out. That’s a great question. And that’s a question that when my eyes woke up this morning, she was staring at me saying what are we doing this weekend? I still don’t have an answer.”
YOU’VE TALKED ABOUT POINTS IN TERMS OF THE DRAW, BUT WE’VE HAD TWO SURPRISE WINNERS OVER THE PAST COUPLE OF WEEKS. SO IN TERMS OF THE PLAYOFFS, HOW MUCH ARE YOU LOOKING AT POINTS? “Yeah, you’re looking at points. You’re always looking at points. They both did a great job of holding on to their clean air. You know what I mean? I’m a little .. hell, you’re jealous. That’s what you are. I wish I got strategy and a caution would have come out put me in the lead and been able to hold on to the win and not have to worry about it anymore. I mean it’s as simple as that. I mean they were decent cars but they weren’t leading lap cars, you put them in the lead and they drove off. Both of them.”
IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU’RE MORE INCLINED TO RETURN TO STEWART-HAAS RACING NEXT YEAR THEN MAYBE PURSUE OTHER OPPORTUNITIES OUTSIDE OF RACING. IS THAT CORRECT? “I’m a race car driver man. I love doing the broadcasts and things like that but you know, I think that time will come and I don’t know when that’ll be. I want to race and I want to be in a race car. I love competing. I love being pissed off at the end of the race. I love being happy at the end of the race. I love that adrenaline of lining up next to that guy and wondering how in the hell you’re going to come off the turn two ahead of him and that’s a feeling that can’t be replaced. That being said, I feel like I really have appreciated the relationship with Fox this year. I feel like that’s something. It’s not up to me whether that happens or not. It’s a ton of fun, I can tell you that. I mean, it’s relatively easy for me. I mean, everybody always asked how do you get up and do that? I mean, I don’t know. Let me get this straight, you want me to go up there and bench race with a bunch of my buddies and talk racing about a race like, like I’ve done since I was four years old at the dinner table? That’s what you want me to go do? Yeah, I got that, I can handle that. It is a ton of fun and I have a huge amount of respect for everybody that puts on the production of our sports and then you start looking at production when you watch a football game or a baseball game differently. Once you know how that you know product comes to play and what we see on television it’s a whole different respect for all the individuals that make that happen. From the cameraman to the producers. The lead guy like Adam, Alexander and Mike Joy, those guys are just crazy talented. They keep these maniacs that grew up racing and talk racing and doing that bench racing like we do up there, for those guys to get up there and to control all of that and to make that go smooth as silk is just amazing. So yeah, I appreciate that. And hopefully, that opportunity will come someday. I don’t know when that day will be.”
ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL. YOU’D LIKE TO BE BACK IN THE CAR THOUGH? “Yeah, hell yeah, who wouldn’t?”
WHEN YOU LOOK AT YOUR PERFORMANCE THIS YEAR YOU MENTIONED THAT YOU GUYS HAVE COME CLOSE ESPECIALLY WHEN IT WAS RIGHT AFTER THE PANDEMIC. HOW FAR OFF ARE YOU GUYS FROM GETTING BACK IN VICTORY LANE?
“Looks like one timely caution. That’s a terrible smart aleck answer. I’m in a bad mood dammit. I had a bad finish and had a bad day yesterday. I got home, went to feed cows and bought some new heifers and I had two of them through the fence and over I’ve been chasing cows all morning long. I’m in a bad mood. I’m on the wrong side of the pillow right now. Down on sleep. Bad Day. Damn cows are out. That was not a good answer. I feel like we could win anytime if we can get in position. I feel like our team is plenty capable of getting the job done.”
YOU MENTIONED THAT YOU’RE WATCHING POINTS. DO YOU FEEL THAT IT IS MUST WIN THAT YOU NEED TO GET A WIN IN THESE NEXT EIGHT RACES TO LOCK UP A PLAYOFF SPOT? “No, no, we just got to go and compete the way we’re capable of competing. We stubbed our toe yesterday. We weren’t very good. We missed our set up. And you know, with our tools and everything that we have at our disposal at Stewart-Haas Racing we probably shouldn’t have done that. We should have ran better than we did. But nonetheless, we were able to get it all wrangled back together. I mean, we were a lap down at a pretty dangerous time of the race. Got that back and got tore up with the damage. I was lucky. I got in the back of the 24 on that wreck and the front and knocked the grill in. We had to cut the grille. I think you guys saw the leaf blower in my car and was like, is he overheating. Be honest with you he was blowing it in the grill. That thing was like 320 yesterday, which doesn’t even register on like if your automobile ever overheats. By the way your gauge would never get to 320. The only reason ours do is they’re digital. I’m like, Oh boy, hey guys, this thing’s like nuclear meltdown right now so we got to come in. He was cutting the grill out and he was running that leaf blower in the in the ductwork because when I hit it smashed all the ductwork and it wasn’t getting any air to the radiator so that’s what he was doing. That guy was cutting the ductwork out of it so the radiator could get some air and I guess I don’t even know why he did it. He walked by and stuck that leaf blower inside the car. Let me tell you something, I wasn’t gonna complain about it. Wasn’t gonna shoo him away cuz it felt good.
Just coming back from all that adversity and everything elseI think we finished 11th which was probably pretty lucky given the circumstances that we were in.”
THE ROAD TO THE INDYCAR SERIES HAS THIS LADDER SYSTEM WHERE IF YOU WIN THELOWEST LEVEL YOU MOVE ON AND SO ON ALL THE WAY TO A GUARANTEED SPOT IN THE INDY 500. SO BASICALLY, IT’S LIKE IF YOU WIN A CHAMPIONSHIP IN ONE OF THOSE SERIES, YOU MOVE ON TO THE NEXT LEVEL. DO YOU THINK NASCAR SHOULD DO THAT WITH ARCA, TRUCKS, XFINITY AND THEN CUP? “Well, that being said, Kurt Busch ran an Indy 500. There have been other instances. I mean, I don’t know that they have a better stepping platform than NASCAR has. That jas always been in play for my whole career. I’ve felt comfortable with who’s on the racetrack. The last probably two years, we’re starting to see guys that we don’t know. And it’s unfortunate because it’s not just solely pinned on them. You know, given the pandemic with no practice and things like that. If that’s gonna be a challenge for any race team it would be their teams, right? Those guys are the ones that probably need to practice the most because they don’t have the ultra high tech simulation and everything we have to make sure that our gaps are exactly right. How many times you ever seen anybody put packer in their cars anymore? I mean, those are things that when we first started that and simulation was kind of shaky that you would do constantly, right? And practice. Those guys are the ones that are doing that during the race and everything now so not only are they probably down on experience, they’re in a car that’s a handful as well. My biggest pet peeve with those guys is they’ll give you — that kid he’s probably one of the worst ones — he’ll give you a finger out the window to the inside well then he’ll drive it in in the middle of the track and won’t give you any room and you get loose underneath of him and wreck. Hey man, if you are going to give somebody the bottom, give them the bottom. You know what they need to do is when you give somebody the bottom, you give them the corner. You lift before the corner and give them the corner. That’s stuff that we had rookie meetings and a veteran driver came in and told those guys. I don’t know if they’re still doing that for those guys, but they should. They’re not doing the things that we were told to do as rookies to be respectful for those guys on the racetrack. It’s not up to me to decide whether those guys belong on the racetrack or not and, quite frankly not up to me to decide if they’re qualified or not. We have a sanctioning body and they need to make sure that who we’re racing against on the racetrack has the appropriate credentials. I don’t know what those guys do or not. And I don’t know that. That’s the God’s honest truth.”
DOES THE SRS SERIES INTRIGUE YOU THAT TONY STEWART AND RAY EVERNHAM ARE PUTTING RAN TOGETHER? “What is it? No, I don’t know. I like short tracks. I don’t know anything about it. I will tell you that I got an education this morning. Just take all your cows for the sale and get out of the cow business. It sucks. They make good lawn mowers, though. I will say that. You can either spend your time chasing cows back to the fences or you can spend your time in a tractor all day long mowing fields. Its kinda take your pick.
I don’t feel like I answered any of these questions appropriately. I wasn’t prepared. I’ve been drinking water because I’ve been walking. I’ve already put in about four miles this morning chasing damn cows. I got poop all over my legs. It hasn’t been very good. You see all these kids falling out of the cars yesterday? Dropping and flopping? Come on man. These cars are hot. We got to get them cooled down somehow. I was riding, unfortunately I picked the plane ride with Austin Dillon. So I had to go home last night and I was happy for him but there’s nothing worse than having a bad day and have to get on a plane to somebody that had a great day. I had a beer with him. I took my licks. I was happy for him. He did a good job. But him and Kurt (Busch) both of those wusses. You can’t win a race and go to the infield care center to take IV’s. Here I am waiting on him with some cold beer to celebrate. And they’re in the infield care center with IV hooked to them. Bunch of sissy’s. Hey, why don’t you all go out and buy you a Ford today. Go drive one. Have a good day.”
