NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
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CUP: Bowyer, No. 33 RCR Team Face Tough Hurdles
Clint Bowyer and his Richard Childress Racing team face a long, tough climb if they hope to win the Sprint Cup championship...
Mike Hembree  |  Posted September 22, 2010   Charlotte, NC
Clint Bowyer (Left) and Richard Childress (Right) plummeted from second to 12th in Cup points after NASCAR handed down a massive 150 penalty for rules infractions at NHMS. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
Clint Bowyer and his Richard Childress Racing team face a long, tough climb – both mathematically and emotionally – if they hope to win the Sprint Cup championship.

Bowyer dropped from second to 12th in Cup points Wednesday after NASCAR nailed his team with one of the biggest point penalties – 150 – in the sport’s history after Bowyer’s race-winning car at Loudon was found to be outside the sanctioning body’s rulebook.

Instead of being only 35 points behind Chase leader Denny Hamlin and being ready to ride momentum into the second Chase race Sunday at Dover, Del., Bowyer now trails Hamlin by 185 points, is behind every other Chase contender in the standings and rides with a team suddenly without its crew chief and much of its energy.

“Nine races is still a long way to go, but the biggest thing is how much this will knock the wind out of their sails,” said SPEED analyst Larry McReynolds Wednesday on NASCAR Race Hub. “This is the race team, in my opinion, that had as much momentum going into the Chase as any of the other 11 teams with three consecutive top-10 finishes. They rolled into Loudon and won the race.

“But now – boom, NASCAR has taken the points away, which is huge. They’ve taken away $150,000 [fine], which is huge. But, even more, now the crew chief and car chief, the two main players on that team besides the driver, are being sat down for more than half of the Chase.”
VIDEO: Last Lap Cup - New Hampshire Clint Bowyer wins at NH. (Image: SPEED)

Crew chief Shane Wilson and car chief Chad Haney were suspended for six races.

Chase driver Tony Stewart, also on NASCAR Race Hub, said the No. 33 team can bounce back but that the road will be hard.

“The biggest thing is going to be going to the racetrack and having that stress of not having his crew chief, not having his car chief, and those are two key people on a race weekend,” Stewart said. “I can promise you that [team owner Richard] Childress has the resources to cover this. It’s definitely possible, but everyone else is going to have to have trouble.”

Asked about the severity of the punishment, Stewart said, “Until we find out what the penalty was for, as far as the severity of how far it was off, you don’t know,” he said. “But NASCAR has been consistent with saying as these penalties keep occurring that they are going to keep raising the level. … The timing is terrible for this team. To see these guys race their way into the Chase, go out and have a weekend like they had at Loudon and now have this happen, it makes my weekend at Loudon not look so bad now.”

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 28 years. He has written several books on NASCAR, including "NASCAR: The Definitive History of America's Sport" and "Then Tony Said To Junior: The Best NASCAR Stories Ever Told". He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.

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