Clint Bowyer - No. 07 Jack Daniel’s Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS
Event Preview Fact Sheet - Event/Date: USG Sheetrock 400
In his only NEXTEL Cup Series start at Chicagoland Speedway, Bowyer started deep in the field and drove all the way to ninth, collecting what was his fifth top-10 finish of his rookie season. He completed all 270 laps and earned just over $110,000. In three NASCAR Busch Series starts at the 1.5-mile suburban Chicago tri-oval, Bowyer has earned a pair of top 10s including a sixth-place effort in the 2005 USG Durock 300.
A Steady Progression … Over the season’s first 18 races, Bowyer has earned one pole, one top-five and nine top-10 finishes. He has a 15.6 starting average and a 15.9 finishing average. The 28-year-old driver has completed 5,213 of 5,329 total laps contested (97.82 percent) and sits 11th in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series championship point standings. Over the first 18 races last season, Bowyer had a 23.1 average start and an 18.9 average finish. He was 18th in points heading into the division’s annual stop at Chicagoland last season.
Speaking of Stats … Bowyer is ranked 14th in NASCAR’s Average Running Position category (16.439) and is the sport’s third best Closer – a statistic derived from the number of positions improved over the last 10 percent of each race. Bowyer has gained an average of 2.056 spots over the season’s first 18 races and has improved a total of 37 positions over the closing 10 percent of those same races. The Emporia, Kan., native has also logged 2,933 of the 5,329 laps completed this season (55 percent) in the top 15. He is 14th in the Driver Rating category (83.2). The Driver Rating is a formula that combines the following categories: wins, top-15 finishes, average running position while on the lead lap, average speed under green, fastest lap, most laps led and lead-lap finishes. The maximum a driver can earn in each race is 150 points. The Driver Rating number is used pre-race as a prediction tool and post-race as a performance evaluator.
You started 38th at Chicago last year. You had to do a little digging to get all the way up to ninth.
“Same story, different book. That was the story of our year in 2006 – we’d qualify bad and run good. It just took all day to get there. Chicagoland is a sister track to my home track in Kansas so it’s very important to me, personally, that we run well at Chicago. If we run well at Chicago, that tells me we can go to Kansas and do the same thing. ”
Is there anything in particular that you either like or dislike about the race track?
“Chicagoland is very fast. It’s a difficult track to race on because it’s so fast and that’s why, historically, you haven’t seen a whole lot of side-by-side racing at Chicago. It does seem like the groove is getting a little wider so that should create better racing. ”
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