Nov. 4, 2012
By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service
FORT
WORTH, Tex. -- It may seem patently obvious, but you can’t gain ground
with a sixth-place finish when the two drivers you’re chasing
are finishing first and second.
That’s
the source of Clint Bowyer’s frustration. With a strong car and a
promising fuel-mileage strategy, Bowyer was a potential race
winner in Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway, but,
ultimately, he was no match for Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup leader
Jimmie Johnson and second-place Brad Keselowski, who crossed the finish
line 1-2.
In
his first season with Michael Waltrip Racing, Bowyer held onto third in
the standings with two events left in the Chase, but dropped
10 more points to Johnson and fell to 36 back. Barring catastrophes to
both drivers ahead of him, Bowyer, who finished sixth Sunday, will have
to wait until 2013 for another shot at his first championship.
“It’s
just unbelievable,” Bowyer said. “You keep having these top-10 runs,
flirting with the top five week in and week out, and, unless
you’re winning these races every week, you just can’t gain points. Even
if we were winning right now, it ain’t enough to run them down for a
championship.”
Bowyer
had more than a faint glimmer of hope Sunday, as he watched Johnson and
Keselowski battle side by side at the front of the field,
precariously close to losing control of their cars.
“I
thought they were going to wreck each other, but they didn’t,” Bowyer
said wistfully. “It would have been awesome! I really did think
they were going to wreck each other.”
COMPANY MAN
Dale
Earnhardt Jr., who finished seventh, also had a close look at the
action between Johnson and Keselowski and was duly impressed.
Earnhardt
is Johnson’s teammate at Hendrick Motorsports. It was also Earnhardt
who gave Keselowski his first real break in NASCAR when
he hired Keselowski to drive a Nationwide Series car for JR
Motorsports.
Earnhardt’s loyalties weren’t divided, however, as he watched the action unfold.
“That
was pretty crazy,” Earnhardt said. “I was thinking I might have a shot
to win if they kept on going like that… but I was glad
to see Jimmie take it at the end. What a battle this championship is.
“Brad
is putting up an awesome fight. He hadn’t really run good here. His
stats were terrible for this place, and they came in and they
did their work. They have been real impressive. But I’m a company man,
so I’m glad HMS (Hendrick Motorsports) is on top tonight.”
PILGRIM’S PROGRESS
Driving
for his third team in less than a year, Kurt Busch can see substantial
progress in his relatively short tenure with Furniture
Row Racing. In his fourth start for the team, Busch ran eighth Sunday,
posting his best finish on an oval track since winning at Dover in the
third Chase race of 2011.
"Considering
that we had a top-five or top-10 car at the last two races but got
nailed in accidents, it was important to come away with
a solid finish today,” Busch said. “We've made a lot of progress as a
team in a short period of time, which gives us plenty of optimism for
2013.
“However,
we still have some handling issues to work out, but we're getting
there. This was only our fourth race together, and I’m really
proud of how we came back after struggling for a good finish.”
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