KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Clint Bowyer’s return to his home state was anything but a leisurely vacation for the Emporia native.
Since arriving in Kansas last Wednesday, Bowyer has been a man on the go, and that doesn’t include the two NASCAR races he competed in at Kansas Speedway on Saturday and Sunday.
From appearances at Heartland Park Topeka and Lakeside Speedway — two racetracks where he learned to race — to autograph sessions and radio shows in Lawrence and the Kansas City area, Bowyer had few chances to relax.
Nevertheless, the chance to come back to Kansas and see friends and families, not to mention race in the Busch Series Yellow Transportation 300 and the Nextel Cup Banquet 400 — he finished fifth and ninth, respectively — was well worth the trip.
“It’s a lot of fun to be able to come back here,” Bowyer said. “It’s a lot of fun to be able to come back and see a lot of family and friends that I haven’t seen all year long. It’s a shame that you don’t have more time to spend with them.”
Bowyer’s life has drastically changed in the year since he was last at Kansas Speedway for a race on Oct. 8, 2005.
While he is finishing his third season on the Busch Series circuit, Bowyer is now a full-time driver in the Nextel Cup Series, racing in the No. 7 Jack Daniels Chevrolet.
“It’s just a lot more of everything,” Bowyer said of his move up to the Nextel Series. “I’m a lot farther than I ever dreamed I would be, running in the Nextel Cup Series. It’s a long ways from Lakeside Speedway and those places. It’s just neat to see the hard work finally paying off.”
Bowyer went into this weekend coming off his best weekend on the NASCAR circuit after he won the Busch Series Dover 200 last Saturday before following that with an eighth-place finish in Sunday’s Nextel Cup Dover 400.
That success gave Bowyer reason to be hopeful at Kansas Speedway, and he went into this weekend wanting to put on a good show.
“It’s just neat to be able to come back home and be able to race in front of these fans,” Bowyer said before the races. “They don’t get a lot of chances to see you, and to be able to come back and race in front of them and hopefully put on a good show, it’s a lot of fun.”
Bowyer had no shortage of well-wishers at this weekend’s races. On Saturday and Sunday, during driver introductions prior to each race, Bowyer received some of the loudest cheers from the packed grandstands, as people from across the state descended on Kansas Speedway to cheer on their native son.
Perhaps Bowyer’s most famous fan this weekend was Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who was on hand for Sunday’s Nextel Cup Banquet 400 race. There was no doubt which driver Sebelius was cheering for in Sunday’s race.
“They asked me on the radio if I had a favorite, and I said, ‘Absolutely. It’s Clint Bowyer,’” Sebelius said. “I had the chance to say hi to him before the race. I wanted to wish him luck and tell him that I wanted him to win. I could think of nothing better to have a Kansan win at Kansas Speedway.”
Bowyer went on to finish ninth in Sunday’s Nextel Cup Banquet 400, a day after he finished fifth in the Yellow Transportation 300 to bump himself into third in the Busch Series standings.
Bowyer was running in first and pulling away from the field early in the race on Sunday, but after a caution on lap 58, Bowyer had trouble getting out of the pits, dropping him from first to fifth.
The pit mistake was something that, prior to the race, Bowyer said had been a problem for him and his racing team.
“Obviously, we’ve made some rookie mistakes, me and the car. We’re a rookie team just trying to get over those things and learn as much as we can,” Bowyer said. “We’re running top-15, top-10 week-in and week-out. Once you start running inside the top-10, you’re running with teams that have been together for five-plus years and have a lot of experience on these race track and have a lot of experience together.”
Bowyer eventually worked back up to first after a restart on lap 146, dropped to second by lap 166, and then disaster struck for the Jack Daniels team.
On lap 172, Bowyer’s car slid out heading into the third turn and slammed into the wall, dropping the Nextel Cup rookie from second to 26th after a pit stop for repairs.
In all, Bowyer led for 43 of the 267 laps on Sunday.
Bowyer said the hardest part about racing in the Nextel Cup Series were the week-to-week — and even lap-to-lap — fluctuations that a rookie team is prone to experiencing.
“It’s just hard to compete on a consistent basis,” he said. “You’ll get it one week and be really good and back it up the next week with a not-so-good run. That’s what we’re working on, just trying to get the consistency down, and once we get that, I think we’ll be good. I’m already looking forward to next year.”
While his return to Kansas Speedway didn’t go as well as he had hoped, Bowyer said his focus is on finishing out the year strong, and that he hopes the fans around Kansas and in Emporia continue to give him the support he has had for so many years.
“We’re out of the Chase, and that’s obviously what it’s all about, but right now it’s about winning a race by the end of the season and building momentum and building for next year,” he said. “It’s been a lot of fun to see how Emporia has taken to not only me, but NASCAR as a whole. To be able to go back to Emporia and see “2” decals and “7” decals on the backs of windows, that’s important to me.
“It means a lot to me, and I’m proud to be from Emporia.”