Clint Bowyer can normally be seen smiling. Not so Monday. Bowyer ended up watching the 70 laps of Monday’s rain-delayed race at Michigan after crashing.
On lap 130 while exiting turn 2, Bowyer took his Ford underneath the Toyota of Erik Jones. Austin Dillon soon appeared below the two and Bowyer found himself in the middle of a three-wide sandwich. He slid up and made contact with the right rear of Jones and was soon sliding towards the outside wall. He made heavy contact, twice, with the wall and his day was done.
“The 20 got loose and I tried to basically make an evasive move to get under him,” Bowyer said. “The 3 was there and got loose under him and then I got into him and ran out of real estate. It was a pretty frustrating day. Pretty frustrating out there.”
Much of that frustration might have come from NASCAR’s new high downforce low horsepower package that was being raced at Michigan for the first time.
“It was pretty much what I expected,” Bowyer lamented about the racing.
“I mean, it is not racing. I am sorry, I am biting my tongue,” he added. “I have never been penalized for trying to make a pass in my whole life since I was four years old. You get a run on somebody and you can make a complete pass and by the time you get to the next corner you have been passed by four people. It is really, really frustrating.”
“It is all situational and all comes down to what call you make and when you make it and when you make it and how your track position plays out for stage points and then how your luck plays out from there.”
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.
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