Notebook: Bowyer: My championship hopes are done

Notebook: Bowyer: My championship hopes are done


KANSAS CITY, Kan.—Clint Bowyer declared himself out of the championship hunt Friday, two days after his Richard Childress Racing team lost its appeal of a 150-point penalty levied after his race-winning car at New Hampshire failed inspection.
“I’m very disappointed,” Bowyer said Friday at Kansas Speedway. “Not surprised at all. I’ll just leave it at that. I’m looking forward to getting that behind me. This is an important weekend.”
Asked if he held any hope for the penalties being reduced or overturned during RCR’s final appeal to NASCAR’s chief appellate officer, Bowyer said, “What would you do?”
RCR argued that the car was knocked out of compliance by a tow truck that pushed Bowyer’s car because it was out of fuel after the race. Its hearing before chief appellate officer John Middlebrook is scheduled for Tuesday.
“I told Richard it’s not worth fighting,” Bowyer said. “It is what it is. If you want to be a part of this great thing that we call the sport, you better just go on and enjoy what it is.
“He is fighting hard. I am proud of the case they put together. They worked very hard on it and they put a lot of time and energy and money to present the case to prove less than a sixteenth of an inch how that car could be out (of compliance).”
With the 150-point penalty, Bowyer fell to 12th in the Chase standings and is 235 points out of the lead after last week’s 25th-place finish at Dover.
He declared his championship hopes over and said his goal now is to finish in the top five in the standings.
“The championship hopes are done for myself,” Bowyer said. “The thing that I’ve got to do is be the best teammate I can be. We’ve got to bring a championship home. We’ve still got two shots at that (at RCR).”
RCR’s Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton are also in the Chase. Harvick is fifth in the standings while Burton is seventh.

Big test for Johnson
It may be only the third race of the Chase, but Sunday’s race at Kansas Speedway could go a long way in determining who will be contending for this year’s championship.
Specifically, it might show how strong Jimmie Johnson will be on the four 1.5-mile tracks that are a big part of the 10-race playoff. Or how much ground his team still has to cover.
Such tracks often have been the strong suit of the No. 48 team, but even Johnson admits that hasn’t been the case this year.
“The weird thing is that although we had a tough summer on the 1.5-mile tracks, we had a lot of speed; especially the first half of the race,” Johnson said. “So, looking at what we’ve been doing and the balance of the car and the directions we were working on, there was enough that went wrong that we know not to go down that road any longer. I feel that we’ve made a good change.”
Johnson won at 1.5-mile Las Vegas in February, finished 12th at Atlanta and second at Texas, but the team stumbled at Charlotte and Chicago, finishing 37th and 25th, respectively.
At Atlanta last month, the team rebounded as Johnson finished third. How much that result can be used to gauge his team’s 1.5-mile program, though, is unknown.
“Atlanta is a pretty unique track with a lot of fall-off on the tire, and it’s not what we see here or Charlotte and so on,” said Johnson, who qualified 21st Friday for Sunday’s Price Chopper 400. “I’m optimistic and I feel that we’ve come to a good conclusion with things. But we’ve got to get on the track and really prove it and be in the hunt.”

Trevor who?
Matt Kenseth has never spoken to Trevor Bayne, Roush Fenway Racing’s newest signee, but he does have strong feelings about the No. 17 car Bayne will drive Saturday in his Nationwide Series debut with the organization.
Kenseth drives the No. 17 Ford for Roush in the Cup Series, and he’d like to drive the Nationwide car more often. Bayne’s full-time car number for next year hasn’t been determined, but odds are it won’t be the 17.
“To be honest with you, I’ve never met Trevor,” Kenseth said Friday. “I don’t know him. I know he spun me out at Darlington, and I never heard from him. But, other than that, I don’t really know him.
“We’ve been trying to put together a Nationwide deal so I could run some more. I’ve been wanting to for a long time. I kind of know how Darrell Waltrip always feels when he talks about me in the 17, because you see somebody else driving the 17, and it’s kind of weird. I’d rather be in it myself.”