Perhaps one of the biggest surprises thus far this season has been the performance of Clint Bowyer.
Coming into 2009, Bowyer all but predicted gloom and doom, having been forced to shift teams within Richard Childress Racing following last season. Bowyer had moved from his comfort zone with the No. 07 Jack Daniels team to a new role as front man for the No. 33 General Mills Chevy team, a new fourth team in the expanded RCR stable.
In so doing, Bowyer went from a team that had easily made the Chase for the Sprint Cup the last two seasons to an untested team made up of a new crew chief, Shane Wilson, and all new crew members, while new teammate Casey Mears inherited Bowyer’s old crew and crew chief (Gil Martin) for this season.
Bowyer even asked team owner Richard Childress if he was being demoted, in a sense. Childress replied to just believe in him and that the shift would make sense sooner rather than later.
“When your boss says this is what you’re going to do, it’s pretty much what you’re going to do,” Bowyer said. “It definitely was nerve-wracking. ... Maybe it was time for a change and it’s really opened my eyes in the beginning part of this season with a completely new team. (There was a) new optimism, new everything. It’s already opened my eyes to what can become of this.”
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Childress looks like a prophet now. Heading into Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway, Bowyer has surprised many folks—he sits second in the standings, just 43 points behind the leader, Jeff Gordon.
“Going into Bristol here, obviously things are going good,” Bowyer said.
Surely, this can’t be the same Clint Bowyer who only a few months ago publicly questioned whether he’d even make it to the Chase this season. While most other fans, reporters and critics have been looking at other drivers, such as Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Carl Edwards and Tony Stewart, Bowyer has flown so far under the radar that some people are starting to call him “Stealth” Bowyer.
But his performance has been anything but stealth. He was fourth in the season-opening Daytona 500, second two weeks later at Las Vegas and sixth two weeks ago at Atlanta.
“We haven’t even hit our stride yet and we’ve already had three good finishes out of four,” said Bowyer, whose other finish, 19th at Fontana, wasn’t all that bad. “I’m looking forward to the rest of the season seeing what this team is made out of.”
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