Race 2 Win: NEXTEL Cup Series Race Notes

Nextel Cup Series

Sharpie 500 - Clint Bowyer Notes

Clint Bowyer
No. 07 Jack Daniel’s Chevrolet Impala SS
Event Preview Fact Sheet

Event/Date: Sharpie 500 – August 25, 2007
Venue: Bristol Motor Speedway – Bristol, Tenn.

NOTES:

This Week’s Jack Daniel’s Chevrolet at Bristol Motor Speedway … Clint Bowyer will pilot Chassis No. 192 from the Richard Childress Racing (RCR) NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series stable. Built new for 2007, this is the same car Bowyer raced earlier this season at Bristol (St. 18, Fn. 8), Martinsville (St. 21, Fn. 11) Phoenix (St. 12, Fn. 22), Darlington (St. 1, Fn. 9), Dover (St. 15, Fn. 8) and New Hampshire (St. 20, Fn. 37).

Bowyer in the Loop …

Bowyer at Bristol … In three starts at Bristol, Bowyer has one top-10 finish. The Emporia, Kan., native finished eighth in March at the first-ever Car of Tomorrow race. In last year’s spring race at the high-banked, half-mile oval, Bowyer was involved in an incident, not of his making, and finished 29th. Last August, the 28-year-old driver had a left-rear wheel come off his Jack Daniel’s Chevy exiting turn four which ultimately cost him 85 laps while Mr. Jack’s Crew exacted repairs.

What a Difference a Year Makes … Over the season’s first 23 races, Bowyer has earned one pole, one top-five and 11 top-10 finishes. He has a 15.2 starting average and a 15.3 finishing average. The 28-year-old driver has completed 6,133 of 6,249 total laps contested (98.14 percent) and sits ninth in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series Championship point standings. Heading into round two at Bristol last season, Bowyer had a 22nd-place starting average, a 20th-place average finish and was 19th in points. He had two top fives and just six top 10s at this point last year.

Speaking of Stats … Bowyer is the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series’ eighth-best Closer – a statistic derived from the number of positions improved over the last 10 percent of each race. Bowyer has gained an average of 1.217 spots over the season’s first 23 races and has improved a total of 28 positions over the closing 10 percent of those same races. The Emporia, Kan., native has also logged 3,545 of the 6,249 laps completed this season (56.7 percent) running in the top 15. Bowyer is ranked 13th in NASCAR’s Average Running Position category (16.017) and is also 13th in the Driver Rating category (84.0). The Driver Rating is a formula that combines the following categories: wins, top-15 finishes, average running position while on the lead lap, average speed under green, fastest lap, most laps led and lead-lap finishes. The maximum a driver can earn in each race is 150 points. The Driver Rating number is used pre-race as a prediction tool and post-race as a performance evaluator.

Keep on Rolling … Bowyer has finished every race this season and has yet to record a DNF (did not finish) in 2007. He is only one of three drivers in the top 10 in points to have finished every race. His teammate Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin are the other two drivers with no DNFs. Bowyer has been running at the end of every race dating back to Bristol last August.

Happy Birthday Mr. Jack … Bowyer’s Jack Daniel’s Chevy will sport a flat black paint scheme this weekend to commemorate Jack Daniel’s birthday. Jasper Newton ‘Jack’ Daniel would have turned 157 in September.

Tennessee Tradition … Located just over 300 miles from Bristol, the Jack Daniel’s Distillery was officially registered with the U.S. government in 1866. The Jack Daniel Distillery, Lem Motlow, Proprietor, is the oldest registered distillery in the United States and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Jack Daniel’s is sold in over 135 countries, but every drop is distilled, matured and bottled at the Distillery in Lynchburg, (Pop. 361) Tenn., – located in a dry county. Coming Home … Mr. Jack’s crew chief, Gil Martin, is a native of the Volunteer State. Martin, 46, is from Nashville, Tenn., approximately 290 miles northwest of Bristol.

RCR in “Thunder Valley” … In 99 NASCAR Cup Series starts at Bristol, RCR boasts eight wins – seven with Dale Earnhardt and one with Kevin Harvick – three poles, 25 top-five and 45 top-10 finishes. Additionally, in 35 starts, RCR Busch Series teams have claimed five wins – four with Harvick and one with Jeff Green – 15 top-five and 20 top -10 finishes.

RCR Busch Dominance … Much has been made of the supposed dominance of the No. 60 team driver this season. Closer inspection of the statistics, however, shows a different story. After 25 Busch Series races, Kevin Harvick has one more win (5), two more poles (2) and only one fewer top-10 finish (16) in seven fewer races. The No. 29 Holiday Inn team has the same number of top-five finishes (13) as the No. 60 team and two more top-10 finishes (19). Clint Bowyer has two wins, nine top-five and 12 top-10 finishes, and is 15th in points having run only 14 races. Harvick, Bowyer, Burton and Scott Wimmer are all in the top 20 in the driver’s standings despite running limited schedules. RCR leads the Busch Series with nine victories (Harvick – five; Burton – two; Bowyer – two). The three RCR Busch Series teams (No. 2, No. 21 and No. 29) have a total of 31 top-five and 44 top-10 finishes and have led 1,108 laps, just less than one-fourth of the 4,448 laps contested.

Do You Have any Experience … Bowyer will appear at the Jack Daniel’s Experience Saturday, August 25 from 4:30 – 4:45 p.m. to toast Jack Daniel’s 157th birthday. The Jack Daniel’s Experience is a 53-foot tractor trailer filled with artifacts, state-of-the art video monitors, sound system and graphics to give race fans a taste of Lynchburg and the Distillery. The Jack Daniel’s Experience also features a full service bar and will be located on speedway grounds, in the display area, outside the front straightaway. The JDX will be open on Wednesday from 2 p.m. – 7 p.m., on Thursday from 2 p.m. – 6 p.m., on Friday from 10 a.m. – 8 p.m., and on Saturday from 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.

Back to Double Duty … Bowyer returns to the seat of the No. 2 BB&T Chevrolet for this weekend’s Food City 250 NASCAR Busch Series race. Live coverage of the 26th of 35 races on the 2007 NASCAR Busch Series agenda will take the green flag Friday, August 24 at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). The race will be televised on ESPN2 and broadcast from coast-to-coast on the Performance Racing Network (PRN) and Sirius Satellite Radio. Qualifying will be televised live on SPEED the same day beginning at 4:30 p.m. EDT.

Catch the Cup Race … Live coverage of the Sharpie 400 from Bristol Motor Speedway will take the green flag Saturday, August 25 beginning at 7 p.m. EDT. The race will be televised live on ESPN and broadcast worldwide on PRN and Sirius Satellite Radio. Qualifying for the 24th points-paying race on the 2007 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series will be televised live on SPEED Friday, August 24 at 3 p.m. EDT.

CLINT BOWYER QUOTES:
What are your expectations heading into Bristol?
“Since the race track has a new surface, I’m looking forward to seeing what we have and how we stack up. That’s going to mix things up a little bit for everybody. Bristol is still Bristol so anything can happen. You have to be conscientious of that at all times. You have to keep your guard up and be looking forward just as much as you need to pay attention to the guy you’re racing with.”

What’s the line between being aggressive and being too aggressive at Bristol?
“It’s a very fine line. That’s for sure. There are a lot of consequences these days for being too aggressive. One of those consequences is the possibility that you end up taking yourself and your team out at the same time. That’s a hard question to answer. I think you want a happy medium. You don’t want to be too aggressive. You need the respect of the competition and if you don’t have that, those guys will take advantage of you. That’s the biggest thing I try to keep in mind. Right now, I can’t afford to be too aggressive and take the chance of having someone retaliate against me or crashing myself. With where we’re at in the points with the Jack Daniel’s Chevrolet, we just need to be solid.”

Are you more interested in improving your position in the points over the next three races or are you just going to try and maintain?
“Of course you want to move up but at the same time we have to be sure that we can maintain our position. We need to stay in position to make the Chase. That’s our focus. We need to stay solid and focus on what got us here. If we can do that, we’ll make the Chase no problem. The only people that can beat us out of the Chase are ourselves.”