Bowyer's Distraction

 After it was announced that the #33 RCR Cheerios Team was losing 150 owner points, would pay a fine of $150,000, Crew Chief Shane Wilson would serve a six week suspension, Car Chief Chad Haney would serve a six week suspension, and driver Clint Bowyer was to lose 150 driver points the questions started to fly. Everyone was asking what the violation had been and NASCAR wasn't saying. Richard Childress was the first to announce that the penalty handed down was due to the rear of the chassis being sixty-thousandth of an inch outside of specified tolerances. Bowyer elaborated today and said that the rear quarter panel was the piece of the car outside of specifications.


Clint Bowyer put that measurement into perspective during Friday's Media conference. “Sixty-thousandths of an inch, folks. Grab a quarter out of your pocket. Less than the thickness of that quarter right there is worth a 150-point fine?” Not to mention the other penalties. Clint went onto say that he does not believe the team did anything wrong. He made it clear he was going on the record as saying that, and that he felt his fans needed to hear him say it.

Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images for NASCAR

To further make his feelings clear, Clint said “There's a lot of integrity that goes into this sport, I'm damn proud to be a part of this sport, I love this sport, and I wouldn't cheat to win a race in this sport. We have a lot more integrity in the race team and RCR.” Coming out of the media session, Bowyer headed to the first weekend practice at Dover International Speedway. Admitting that he has had trouble focusing on this weekend with the incident looming overhead as RCR awaits an appeal hearing in the next week or so, Clint went to the first practice session at Dover under extreme pressure.

The first practice session closed with Bowyer in fourth place on the leader board with a speed of 155.072, just .123 seconds behind the fastest car in practice on Friday. Qualifications did not turn out as well. When qualifications wound down and found Jimmie Johnson atop the leader board, Bowyer was way back in 24th place. Bowyer's speed of 153.997 was .261 behind Johnson, the 43 qualifiers were separated by less than nine-tenths of a second in Qualifications.


Bowyer now must come out during the two Saturday practice sessions and forget the happening of the past week and focus on what is going on this weekend – a race to gain invaluable lost points. With an average finish at Dover of 14.7 Clint will have to come out on Sunday and perform better than average to make up some of the lost ground. Although the appeal is in process and will be heard before officials sometime, hopefully in the next week Richard Childress made it clear that the team is not counting on winning the appeal. Childress said “...in the history of RCR don't think we have been but to maybe three appeals. We didn't win any of them."


Amy McHargue
http://ellipticalcurrents.blogspot.com