CUP: Bowyer Ready To Move On

Sprint Cup

CUP: Bowyer Ready To Move On

Clint Bowyer has an interim crew chief after final appeal hearing...

Bob Pockrass | http://www.scenedaily.com | Posted October 08, 2010 Fontana, CA

NASCAR upheld its 150-point penalty on Clint Bowyer. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

It was hard to tell Friday whether Clint Bowyer was happy or upset over the decision Tuesday by NASCAR’s chief appellate officer to reduce the suspensions to his crew chief and car chief but uphold Bowyer’s 150-point penalty.

On Tuesday, Bowyer was on an elk hunt. He didn’t find out about the final appeal decision until Wednesday when the plane he was on landed in New Mexico. Bowyer, Elliott Sadler, Bobby Labonte and others then were headed to Las Vegas after the hunt.

“It was behind me last week,” Bowyer said Friday at Auto Club Speedway. “I went on an elk hunt. My phone didn’t work for three days. We went to Vegas and enjoyed ourselves for another couple of days. It was a hell of a good week. … I enjoyed this week, had a lot of fun and didn’t worry about anything.”

Before he left for the elk hunt, Bowyer figured he would have Richard Childress Racing competition director Scott Miller as his crew chief this weekend as crew chief Shane Wilson starts what is now a four-race suspension. Wilson and car chief Chad Haney originally had been suspended for six weeks with Wilson fined $150,000 and – most importantly – Bowyer docked 150 points for what NASCAR said was an illegal car Bowyer drove to victory Sept. 19 at New Hampshire.

At a hearing Tuesday, NASCAR’s final adjudicator John Middlebrook reduced the suspensions to four weeks and Wilson’s fine to $100,000 but kept the points penalty the same after NASCAR ruled that Bowyer’s car had a body that was not set on the frame according to NASCAR specifications.

“It’s going to be a challenge for everybody,” Bowyer said. “Scott has done a good job [getting] acclimated the last few weeks. He’s been on the sidelines on the outside looking down on our race team, [seeing] some of the faults we have as a race team and some of the benefits, the things that we do good.

“I think he can complement both sides of that. It’s going to be challenging to be able to work without Shane, but everybody has done a good job setting up in preparation for this.”

Miller, who was crew chief for Jeff Burton prior to taking over as competition director late last year, will serve as crew chief while crew member Clint Pittman will be the car chief. Miller said the calls you have to make at the top of the box will be the thing he will be rusty at.

“This isn’t the situation we want to be in,” Miller said. “But going back and doing something that I did for a long time, there’s a certain part of that that is intriguing and there is a certain part of that that I still miss every day. To have the opportunity to be able to do it again, it is fun and I’m looking forward to the challenge.”

Miller said he has paid the most attention this year to Bowyer because the No. 33 team had been together for only one year prior to this season. In the last two weeks since the penalty was announced, Miller spent even more time with Bowyer’s team in preparation for the substitute role.

Because Bowyer spotter Mike Dillon typically is responsible for coaching Bowyer through the race, Miller should have an easier adjustment than if he was working with a team where the crew chief talked often on the radio.

“That does help a lot that in this particular team, all that [coaching] responsibility hasn’t been on Shane and won’t be on me a lot,” Miller said.

With the 150-point penalty, Bowyer is 12th in the standings and 252 points behind leader Jimmie Johnson with seven races left in the season.

“It’s taken a lot of attention and a lot of focus away from some things,” Bowyer said. “To get this behind us was important for the outcome of the rest of the year for RCR. … [We need] to get in victory lane again. We have to do that again, in my mind, to clear things up from New Hampshire. It’s important to get that done.”

After the race at Auto Club Speedway this weekend, the team won’t be surprised if NASCAR takes the car for inspection, as it has the last two weeks since the penalty was announced.

Clint Bowyer took issue with the late debris caution in Sunday's race at Fontana. (Photo: Getty Images)

“There’s definitely been precedent set for that sort of thing to happen,” Miller said. “That is not surprising us at all. It might irritate some of the guys after the race is over, especially if you have had a bad day and you have to go through that. But it’s something that we fully expected. I don’t think they’re picking on us. It’s just what they kind of have to do, really.”

Miller said the team has learned some things during the whole ordeal.

“We were building things close,” Miller said. “There has been some things that have happened throughout this whole process that have opened our eyes to some of the things we do and the differences with the way NASCAR might measure something versus the way we were measuring something.

“It’s hard to draw a lot of positives out of a really, really bad situation. But there has been some things brought to light that I think might make us better in the long run.”

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